


Walking it off

by aceofhearts88



Series: STRIKE Team Alpha Series [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Clint crushes on the Winter Soldier, F/F, F/M, Family, Father/Son Moments, Friendship, Hydra, M/M, Multi, Slow Updates, Team as Family, it might become more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 23:14:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 159,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3955600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofhearts88/pseuds/aceofhearts88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New Summary (because some little things got changed in the future plotline):</p><p>"As the dust settles over Sokovia and reveals the scars the battle really left behind, Clint and Pietro set to fix each other, and the entire team around them right along. And next to proving that retiring as an Avenger means absolute shit, kicking Hydra’s ass into the dirt and driving the team completely crazy, they might as well bring a ghost back into the family as well.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - Sokovia

**Author's Note:**

> Please give it a try?  
> I am really hoping that this could be fun to read in the long run.
> 
> I should be able to post the first real chapter later today.

Battles leave scars.

Wars leave victims behind.

Whether you're a hero or a villain, whether you're a soldier or a civilian, whether you're innocent or responsible.

Where there is a fight, people will get hurt.

Broken bones will heal. Bruises will fade.

But a wounded mind? A haunted soul?

Sometimes they never recover.

The Avengers survived the battle of Sokovia.

But what prize had they paid? How many more demons added to their sleepless nights?

For two participants of the war against Ultron, things would surely never be the same again.

**Sokovia would forever be more than just a new scar on their skin.**

Friendship. Trust. Protection. Safety. Salvation. Guidance. Hope.

Demons. Nightmares. Fear.

**Sokovia changed their lives.**


	2. A Hawk's Guilt

Chapter 1:

There was darkness.

Cold. Lonely. 

Sometimes a light gave little warmth.

Voices. Familiar. Protecting. Soothing. Comforting.

And then darkness again.

\--

Beep. Beep. 

Beep. Beep. Beep.

It's rhythmic, steady and strong, but still faster than a normal human heart. Faster than his heart. Faster than it should be maybe, but who was he to judge it, the kid had been faster in everything anyway, why would his heart of all things be an exception.

Stupid youth. Stupid foolish kid. Stupid foolish reckless idiot.

He shouldn't have been there, shouldn't have done what he did, shouldn't have stood in for his mistakes.

He had failed.

And someone else had taken the fall for it.

A kid had taken the fall for it.

He would never forgive himself. He couldn't, no matter what happened or hadn't, no matter what would still happen, it would never be the same again.

There was a point where it just got to be too much, where the guilt outweighed everything else, where no professional view could push it down any longer. It was...

“Clint?”, he flinched heavily when the hand landed gently on his shoulder, and alone the fact that Natasha was gentle with him should have been a dead give-away that he was beyond wrecked. But as it was, he only settled back into his catatonic state on the chair, his eyes never leaving the steadily rising and falling chest of the young man on the cot in front of him.

Kid.

Not young man, kid, he was nothing more than a tall kid.

“Clint!”, his best friend's voice returned, this time a sharp hiss right into his right ear, and the fingers still resting on him dug nails into his still healing shoulder, “Get back to me!”, was the order in the next moment and he blinked blue eyes twice before he turned his head to look at Natasha's face.

Her worried face, and wasn't that a look he rarely saw on her, but had somehow seen far too often in the last months.  
“You look like shit.”, was Natasha's only reaction to his dumb staring, but she pulled back her hand and Clint shifted his shoulder a few times to loosen the tenseness in his muscles again.  
“I don't care.”, was his gruff reply, and he really didn't, all he cared about was for that idiotic asshole to wake up.

Because Pietro Maximoff was not dead.

Pietro was not dead, barely alive and barely holding on, but not dead. Alive.

He had not died protecting his sorry ass, his undeserving ass. He had not sacrificed his life for his completely unworthy one, but he had come too damn close to doing so. A kid had almost died for him. Him. Old rusty Clint Barton.

“Hey, snap out of it.”, a slap to his head brought him out of the darkness of his thoughts again and he found Natasha glowering heavily at him.  
“What do you want, Tasha?”, Clint sighed and Natasha frowned even deeper upon the lack of an evenly snapped Romanoff at the end of his question, and Clint knew why. He only ever called her by her nickname if he was either entirely drugged out of his mind with painkillers or so far down depression that he just didn't have any energy to care anymore.

And Clint hadn't any left, he truly hadn't.

“What I want?”, Natasha hissed even sharper and leaned so close into his face that her nose almost touched his, “You wanna know what I want?”, she turned her voice into an angry whisper even though they were almost completely alone in the medical wing of the new Avengers center.

Nurses and doctors had started to avoid the quiet little room at the end of the corridor a week back, Clint had the rising suspicion they were either scared to upset him because it would send Natasha after them or because it might disturb their patient and then conclude in his slightly out of control sister coming after them.

His best friend continued before he could have finished that thought, “What I want is to see you out of this damn room again. To maybe help me track down a friend. To help with the newbies. Just doing something.”, Natasha snarled, but he didn't him wince, just stared solemnly at her, he couldn't, he just couldn't bring himself to move.

Because if he left, Pietro could die.

Because if he left, Pietro could wake up.

And then he wouldn't be here to knock him right back out for even thinking about sacrificing himself for his sorry ass. 

Clint had deserved to get hurt. He had deserved to die. He had lived his life, he wasn't a kid anymore, he had made mistakes. 

The slap across his face hit him so hard that he almost tumbled backwards out of the chair he had almost melted into by now.

\--

Natasha dragged him outside, of course she would, the last time she had taken no as an answer from him, one of them had not yet been owning a Shield badge. And he was quite sure still that it had been a sarcastic no as well.

“What do you want?”, he asked again, leaning back against a tree in the forest surrounding their new base, only to be attacked with a fist again. Ducking out of Natasha's way, he brought some feet between them, “What the hell was that?”, Clint called out, hand reaching up to touch the bruise that would surely be forming soon, from where she had slapped him some minutes ago.

Natasha growled and pretended to come at him again, Clint stood his ground though, she wouldn't be able to take him by surprise anymore now.  
“Do I still not have enough bruises for your taste? Do you want to break another rip maybe? Or blacken my eye? Make me rip my stitches again?”, his voice got louder with every word until he was yelling, his hands curled into fists.

“Maybe dislocate a shoulder? Break a leg or two? Chop off a hand?”, he snapped angrily and one of said hands curled around a low oaken branch and ripped it clean off, sometimes you didn't need superpowers to cause destruction, sometimes anger did the job just fine, “Because frankly, there isn't anything you can do anymore. Nothing that could happen that could make me feel worse. I am already dying!”

And then it was out, out in an outraged cry that had Clint stumble back against the closest tree, while Natasha stared at him out of wide unblinking eyes. It was the first time he had allowed himself to be brutally honest to her since they had returned from Sokovia, the first time he had let her back inside his head.

“There is nothing you can do anymore, Natasha. Nothing anyone can do anymore. Nothing that can hurt me anymore, there is nothing left to hurt. Nothing left to take.”, he hissed and seethed and broke the branch in his hands into pieces.  
“Pietro Maximoff didn't die. The kid is alive, Clint.”, came his best friend's calm voice that did nothing to the fire inside of him anymore.

And they both realized in that moment that Sokovia had broken something between them.

“No, he didn't die.”, Clint agreed but still turned away from Natasha, for the first time since they had met in a rainy night in Budapest, he turned his back on her, “But I can't shake the feeling that Clint Barton died that day.”

“Clint...”

“I need to be alone, Natasha, please.”

\--

Shield was of course a place where gossip ran like wildfire, new base and new people weren't a big hindrance in that, it only helped actually because people were still curious and had less hesitance to approach the higher ranking agents.

So of course news of Agent Barton's breakdown spread through the corridors within the hour, and too pissed off to cool down at the shooting range and way too riled up to bother Wanda by joining her at Pietro's bedside in the early evening hours as every other day in the last two weeks, Clint found his way back to his new rooms. His own rooms where he ended up slamming the door right into Cap's concerned face, the last thing he wanted now was pity.

Blowing up at Natasha would come back to bite him in the ass, but she was also the only person he was comfortable around to really let go. Once that had been different, but too many people got lost, too many lives got ruined. Now all that was left in this side of his life was Natasha. Who had every right to be angry at him now.

He hadn't meant to yell at her, hadn't meant to hurt her. But the clock had been ticking down within him. All that was left now was a weight that forced him to his knees under the shower, that pushed him down until he was gasping for every breath, hunched over with his hands bracing himself against the ground.

Cold water thundered onto his battered body, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He was numb to the pain. Numb because the burning in his chest overshadowed everything. The guilt that choked him, brought the tears to his eyes, the guilt that had him grit his teeth until his head was pounding.

He had no idea how to go on. 

For him, there was no 'after' Sokovia. In every nightmare he saw Pietro die. But in every waking moment, Clint saw himself die.

\--

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I hope you enjoyed reading this and if there are any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments or visit me on tumblr (aceofhearts)!


	3. An Avenger's Goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once more it will be angsty, with some depressing thoughts.  
> But we have almost reached the bottom of the pit, guys. Next time we will hot rock bottom and then it will get better, I promise.
> 
> Have fun reading!

Shield had his fair share of unwritten but still well known official rules back in the day, and some things just lived on during the complete renewal of the whole system. Like habits you were hard to shake.

And even before they had become Shield's highest ranking agents and its only remaining and not hunted Strike team, no one had ever tried to mess with Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton and remained longer at Shield than just one day.

Agent Barton had already been known for being a difficult fellow before he had brought the Russian spy into their rounds, but after Natasha had joined, Phil Coulson had created a whole new set of rules to keep some newbies for a change.

And among those rules, there was one that stuck out:

Lesson Number One:  
If the Black Widow and Hawkeye are fighting, you make yourself as sparse as it gets.

Or you'll end with an arrow nodged into a body part or two, or chained to a pipe, bruised in places you didn't even know could bruise.

And if you were really unfortunate you ended up with an arrow sticking out of your thigh and a face that was not really all perfect anymore, just like Steve Rogers after he had tried the unthinkable. He had tried to be brave and mend the fronts between his agitated and pissed off teammates, both hadn't appreciated it.

“Can I just say something real quick?”, Sam offered, clearly trying to bite back a grin as he kept one arm under Steve's shoulders on their way to the medical ward.  
“I'd rather you not.”, Steve growled and glared at another set of snickering agents who quickly rushed off upon being spotted by a disgruntled Captain America.

“What happened?”, came from the next doorway and Steve muttered more choice words under his breath when he caught sight of the wide eyed confusion and surprise on Wanda's face.  
“Don't ask.”, he grumbled, but saw from the corner of his eye how Sam mouthed to her that he would explain later, damn new teammates and bonding.

\--

Clint had sought out one of the air vents after striking against Steve in his rage, he just didn't have himself under control anymore and was starting to get betrayed by his own instincts. So deep in thoughts often that his body tool control over defending him alone, which had today resulted in Steve getting shot with an arrow.

Who knew what could happen tomorrow.

Not everyone healed as fast and as easy as Captain America, not everyone would be as forgiving and understanding as Steve. Almost everyone else would see the vacant look in his eyes and would immediately think back to Loki.

The everlasting shadow on his name now. And Clint couldn't even shake his own fear that he was losing his grasp on reality again, already he was spacing out because he was too caught up on forcing bad memories back into the deep ends of his mind. And every time he snapped back to awareness, every time he realized he hadn't been there really while his hands had held the bow, he had panicked, he had rushed back into a hidden space in the vents and had pushed his head between his knees until he could breathe again.

But every breath was choking him.

\--

The decision came to him basically over night then, just another sleepless night spend in some dark corner of the training's hall, right up on a beam right under the ceiling. The sun rose and light flooded the hall, and it was then that Clint knew that he had to leave.

Leave it all behind.  
Just for a while, maybe even forever.

But he couldn't stay any longer, if he did, the guilt, the pain, it would continue to choke him, and it might as well just kill him already.

So he had to leave.

Because dying meant Pietro would have sacrificed his life for nothing, and Clint couldn't let that happen. He had been given a second chance and he should better make the most of it now. Live his life like he wanted.

Live life as what he was. Human. 

He went back to his quarters and packed his stuff without anyone noticing, made one quick detour to the medical ward to say goodbye to a sleeping Wanda and an unconscious Pietro, and then he left. Right out the back door without telling anyone, just before the sun had really been high enough to call it morning. 

He got in his car, and sat behind the wheel for a short moment, simply staring at their new headquarters base for a few seconds.  
“I'm sorry, Tasha.”, he whispered almost, afraid that speaking in any louder noise could somehow alarm his best friend to his departure before he was ready for her to know, “I know this feels like betrayal, but I can't do this anymore. I know I should have been there for you, helped you more, but I can't. I don't even know who I am anymore, and I can't even help myself. It's better this way.”

He drove out of the garage and then stopped not far down the road again, pulling the little black phone out of his pockets and throwing it out of the window. 

He left without a word that day, just drove down the street and was gone from the base within minutes. 

And it wasn't until Natasha stormed into his rooms agitated and maybe even a little worried, Steve hot on her heels, and both of them found the bow and full quiver laying on a neatly folded uniform on the bed, that it became clear that Clint had not simply left.

Clint Barton was gone and he had left Hawkeye behind.

\--

“Черт это ублюдок! Идиот! Идиот! Идиот!”

“Language, Natasha, language.”, Steve called out calmly, but Natasha fully ignored him and kept on merrily cursing in Russian while she took her collected frustration out on the third punching bag in a row. The previous two laid utterly destroyed at the side.

“Shouldn't we do something?”, Sam asked from his where he was sitting on his right, wearing sweatpants and a Shield shirt, just like Steve was. The plan had originally been to go running when Natasha had intercepted Steve because she had had a hunch that something was wrong with Clint, wrong enough this time to deem it worthy of investigating.

And now, two hours later, after a briefing with Maria, no one was really in the mood for running or training anymore. Steve didn't know what to think, he had seen, well everyone had, that Clint hadn't been okay since they had come back from Sokovia, but when not even Natasha had managed to coax him out of whatever hole he had fallen into, he had thought that no one else would manage as well.

And now he felt horrible. 

“There isn't really something we can do. Unless you wanna lose a limb.”, he said quietly, eyes never leaving the assassin's furious movements, “There is no need to track Clint down, we all know where he went. We need to give him time.”, the first Avenger explained and Sam hummed in understanding.

“Just see if Rhodey maybe wants to take a turn in the gym or so, Sam. I'm sorry but I don't think I'm gonna leave Natasha alone here now.”, Sam nodded and pushed himself to his feet, patting his shoulder twice before leaving.

Steve remained behind, focused back entirely on Natasha, he could feel her anger and the worry, and a big part of him was concerned over just how much this was hitting her, considering that she was losing it in a very easily accessible public training hall. Nothing secret, nothing hidden about it.

But he was right in what he had just told Sam, there wasn't anything they could do, Clint had left, and everything pointed towards him leaving for good. Leave to lead a normal life with his family. A life he deserved, maybe he even deserved it most of all among their group of superheroes.

Because he was human. Because he could have a normal life. 

The rest of them? Not so much.

But Steve didn't like what circumstances he had left under, everyone had seen how messed up the archer had been ever since they had returned from Sokovia, ever since the little speedster had thrown himself between him and the bullets. 

And now there were two of them left only. He had texted Tony right after telling Hill, but he hadn't heard back a word, and he knew he needed to give him space as well, that Tony needed time to come to terms with what had happened because of him. They hadn't made any progress in finding Bruce. Thor would come back when he saw the need, and there was no chance to reach him until then.

And now Clint was gone as well.

He wondered how much Sokovia had really destroyed.

“No note.”, Natasha's seething, this time in his mother tongue, pulled him out of his thoughts, “He left no note and just relies on me knowing exactly what he is thinking again.”  
“Well, you did, didn't you? You knew exactly what had happened before we even saw his bow.”, he didn't even flinch when she whirled around to glare up at him, “Don't get me wrong, Nat. I'm pissed as well, but I'm more worried than angry. It's not normal for him to abandon ship like this.”, Steve pointed out and threw a water bottle to the red haired woman.

Natasha kept on frowning at everything while she easily caught the bottle and then downed half of it with two sips.  
“Especially not while Pietro is still not awake.”, he continued and Natasha gave a short bitter laugh, swinging herself up over the railing of the stairs to sit down next to him.  
“I think the kid still not being awake is the reason why Clint left. I don't know what's going on with him, not anymore, Cap. Not since Sokovia.”, and it was eating her alive.

Not being able to see what demons her best friend was fighting against. Not being able to find Bruce. 

“Do you want some time off? Get a chance to talk to Clint off work?”, but the moment he had spoken his question, Natasha was shaking her head.  
“No, no, there is no way he will talk to me now. He didn't only run from Shield, he ran from me, too. I have to wait. And until then I'm not gonna stop, there is work to do. With the newbies, with the base. The job doesn't end, Cap.”

“No, it doesn't.”, he agreed with her and they were silent for a moment, “Well then, come on, new recruits to terrify. Business as usual.”, only that it wasn't. They both knew that, as they got to their feet and walked out of the training's hall.

Nothing was business as usual. They were down four Avengers now. Out of the four newbies, Sam and Rhodey gave their best to be supportive and helpful, but it just wasn't the same. Wanda was too unstable to train with them, too distracted and worried about her brother, Steve knew Vision was trying to help her. But Vision was a complete unknown variable still as well. And then there was Pietro.

And Steve had the bad feeling that only the comatose kid could somehow fix this horrible mess, and that just couldn't be a good thing.

\--

Later that day as the sun set on the horizon and the base slowly shifted into night-watch routines and most of its inhabitants slipped into their own quarters , Wanda Maximoff found herself walking through the empty corridors on her way back from the cafeteria, she had grabbed a late night snack, unable still to settle down.

The day had been too long again.

News about Barton leaving had swept through the corridor like firery flames, and she had felt as if being punched in the gut when she had overheard two blond agents whispering furiously with each other as they passed by her.

Apparently suspicion ran high that whatever argument had been brooding between Hawkeye and the Black Widow had made Barton leave for good. She had avoided the others for the rest of the day, had only asked Vision if it was true.

He had told her that yes, Agent Barton had left, but he didn't know why, though he highly suspected those rumors to be wrong, for Agent Romanoff had certainly looked worried and not gloating in victory. Wanda hadn't seen Natasha all day, had chosen to seek solitude with her brother instead, trying to understand why Barton's absence was already pulling on her heart.

Just like now as she quietly closed the door of Pietro's room in the medical ward behind herself and found her eyes flying over to her brother's still form, hoping as always to find blue eyes staring back at her. But nothing. Pietro remained motionless and unconscious as always.  
Wanda sighed and walked over to the small couch Steve had carried into the room for her about a week ago, “superpowers and magic don't mean you won't wake up with a twisted neck after a night in those chairs.”

Setting the coffee and the sandwich down, she settled back into the pillows by her brother's side, “Barton is gone, Pietro.”, she started to talk silently as always, still stuck in the belief that he could hear her, even if all she found was a wall of white when she tried to read his mind, “I do not yet know why, I'm hoping Steve will explain tomorrow. He didn't look good anymore in the last days though, especially when I saw him sitting with you. He is haunted by something, I don't need to look into his head to figure that out, he has been fighting with Natasha. Sam tells me it's not a good sign, they've been partners and friends for so long. He told you how they met, you might not remember when you wake up, it is a good story.”, she pushed a hand over her face and leaned back against the couch.

“I hope that wherever he went, he'll find what he is looking for. He is a good man, he deserves a good life.”, she opened her eyes again once she became aware that they had fallen close, “The bad thing is I really liked having him around. He made me feel protected for some reason, he is funny and kind. And I miss him already.”, and most of all, Wanda thought privately to herself Clint Barton had let her feel less alone, had let her miss Pietro a little less.

She fell asleep crying that night.

\--

He had a shrine, a secret shrine that Laura and even Natasha had no idea about, up in a corner of the barn, right under the roof on a beam he frequented often when he needed to be alone with his thoughts. When the demons of his job and his past were too strong to be pushed back and ignored, when he desperately tried to get away from the kids to not let them see how much their father was hurting every single day of his life.

It was as much a shrine as it was a memorial, for the people he had failed. 

Innocents, civilians, people he hadn't been able to protect during missions. Friends he had made and then had needed to leave behind without a word because his past had caught up with him again. Agents who had fallen.

Just like the picture he added upon returning to his sanctuary two weeks after returning home, the picture of three young now probably former Shield agents, happy faces smiling into the camera he had held up himself, three charming and deadly lipstick grins. Faces he would probably never see again, because once again he had been too preoccupied with his own pain to safe people he cared about.

Agents St.Oak, Viktora and Seaway. Strike Team Alpha. Missing and lost since the Winter Soldier had appeared on American soil again, some weeks before Shield had fallen. His students, Natasha and him had trained them, had trained them for everything but being caught by Hydra.

He had failed them. Failed them when he had been too far away to take up the rescue call. Failed them when he hadn't been able to convince Hill to continue the search, had failed them when he hadn't been able to convince the important people that these three girls would never betray them, that they hadn't been working for the Hydra part of their organization. They had only ever been loyal to him, to Coulson, to Natasha.

Clint sighed as he pinned the picture to the wall before slumping back against the wall, most of his last arguments with Natasha before he had left had been about the girls. She had been grieving just as much as he had, but in her eyes it had been better to let go, to try and move on, to not hang onto the hope that one day they might have answers.

He had snapped and asked her if that was the same she was telling Steve about his lost friend and had then continued to storm away from the training's hall, running straight into Maria Hill who had been on her way to inform them that the official search for the second of Shield's remaining Strike teams would be cut off in a couple of weeks and that the agents, their friends, would be declared dead.

Hawkeye would have been able to swallow it. Agent Barton would have been able to take it, but Clint had stopped being that person when he had seen blue eyes staring emptily at a smoke filled sky. And Clint Barton had not been able to take it anymore.

Clint Barton had broken that night and decided that the only way to keep himself from failing more people was to leave them all behind, to go back to the one place he had always been able to come back to. The farm, his family. The only people had never failed so far.

\--

Weeks passed.

Pietro didn't wake up.

Tony didn't call.

Clint didn't come back.

Bruce remained missing.

Nothing happened.

\--

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any questions? Feel free to ask in the comment or on my tumblr.


	4. Nathaniel Pietro Barton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> got a little too long so I cut it in half

The nightmares didn't magically disappear, nor did the guilt or the endless questions plaguing his mind at every quiet moment, but hard as it might sound, life went on. And so did Clint Barton after a few weeks of peace and stability on the farm, surrounded by his family and the never ending list of renovations.

Distraction had always been a tool he had used to deal with what was out of reach and out of his control, in the nights Laura soothed the nightmares, held him when he gasped awake, whispered softly in his ears until he could see the ceiling above them and no longer the smoke filled sky of Sokovia. And during the days, well, he couldn't have been blessed with more awesome children, Lila especially seemed to know exactly when to jump at him and demand a piggyback ride or a spontaneous lesson in how to not hammer the nail into the wall.

Of course there were moment where he was reminded of the girls, of Pietro and the team, when he finally got around to remodel the guest rooms, and Laura insisted on the color and patterns that their friends had picked out to make it their home as well, when he found a sock that was big enough that only Thor or Steve could have been wearing it. But nothing threw him for a loop anymore, nothing made him ache to call Natasha or Cap and talk, to explain why he had left, to explain why he thought couldn't come back.

He was home. He was no longer an Avenger, his life was with his family now. That Laura didn't see it like that at all, he wouldn't know until another few weeks later.

For now he was content, and the only thing being slapped in his face was Laura's handbag one early afternoon as he was scrubbing down the old tractor in the barn that Tony had never gotten around to fix.  
“Ow, what the hell, Laura?”, he called out and rolled himself to his feet, dodging another one of her attacks and downright ripping the bag from her hands, “What is going on with you?”, but when he got a look at her finally, it became obvious what the situation was. No longer wearing the tatty old dress to wipe the kitchen down, Laura was dressed in a pair of his old sweatpants and an even older blouse of hers, cradling her stomach in both hands, now that they were free again.

And her bare feet were clad in that worn pair of sneakers she so loved.

“It's time.”, was her deadpanned reply to his question and Clint blinked once before he jumped into action, the first time, with Cooper, he had freaked out completely, despite years as a deadly assassin and multiple survived gunshot wounds and explosions, he had been ready to tear out his own hair when Laura had gone into labor. The second time, with Lila, he had been cool until they had reached the hospital and Laura had had Natasha throw him out of the delivery room because his nerves were driving her crazy. 

This time it would be different anyway, the traitor baby as Natasha had so lovingly called him, had turned around, as they had last seen during check ups, and Laura had been overdue anyway, they had already been scheduled for a c-section the day after tomorrow, Clint doubted it would go any other way now. Changing into fresh clothes in record time and grabbing the overnight bag and his phone, he helped Laura into the car and then shot off towards the hospital.

She called the school because of the kids. He called Natasha without thinking or knowing the reason. The school found someone to look after the kids and then bring them to the hospital. Natasha didn't pick up, his call went to voice mail.

\--

Clint was not the most patient man in the world, he could appear like one, but he wasn't, he surely wasn't, so it was him running around in circles in the waiting room while the doctors delivered his third child. Laura had taken one look at his face while they had prepped her for it, and had straight faced told him to not even think about staying with her. 

“You'll end up making my stitches yourself, Natasha will castrate you and I can very much live without that.”, the doctors had looked at them weird, while the nurses had smiled a little awkwardly, all of them probably writing Laura's strange words down to the anesthesia. Clint knew though that she had been honest, so he had retreated to the waiting room, and had given his best impression of an agitated tiger in heat.

One hour later though, a young nurse with bubbly blond hair in a tight braid came out from behind the doors he had glared at as if they had personally been responsible for his nerves being tight enough for hostage situations but not strong enough for the birth of his children. 

“Congratulations, Mister Barton, a healthy beautiful baby boy.”, Clint couldn't deny that he teared up a little when the smiling nurse handed over the bundle of blue blankets, tightly swaddled around the sleeping babe. It was the third time, but it still knocked all breath from his lungs and wiped out all signs of time while he stared down at those tiny fingers, tiny nose and tiny lips.

“I'll give you two a moment and then take you to your wife, Mister Barton.”, nodding without looking up, Clint waited until the nurse left the room and then he sat down in one of the chairs that weren't even so uncomfortable anymore, only eyes for his new son.  
“Welcome to the world, Nate.”, he breathed and stroked a careful finger over the fuss of his second son's cheek, blue eyes flickered open and locked onto his and Clint felt the tears streaming down his face in endless happiness.

He had come so close to losing it all, so close to never experience this moment, and he would do whatever it took to make up for it, to never let it be the chance again that his children might have to grow up without a father. They would never have to end up like him, like the true blood uncle they would never got to know because a life without parents had ruined him until nothing but a black heart remained.

“I love you.”, he hiccuped and leaned down to breathe in the smell that only babies showed, the smell of newborn life, of a new beginning. And as he stared down at his son slowly going back to sleep, he thought of Pietro, just for a moment, he thought of the boy who was responsible for him sitting here now, and he wondered briefly, just briefly, if maybe it had been a too quick decision to never go back.

He owned it to him at least to thank him in person.

\--

The nurse brought him to his tired but happily smiling wife a few minutes later, and then closed the door on the way out, everyone knew them here, it was a small town, a small hospital in a small community. Everyone knew everyone almost, and no one would ever judge them here, even though none of them knew the truth of his job in any way.

“Hey.”, he spoke quietly, sitting down on the edge of Laura's bed and reluctantly handing over the baby to her, pulling the blanket higher to make sure both of them were warm and comfortable.  
“Hey yourself.”, Laura breathed back and took her eyes off her new baby only long enough to kiss him when he leaned down, smiling a little broader as she caught sight of the red around his eyes.  
“How are you feeling?”, he asked as he pulled back again, Laura turned back to smile loopily at Nate.

“I'm good, really good.”, and then she hesitated, just a small pucker between her eyes, but Clint caught it and made a low sound in his throat, demanding to know what was going on without saying any words, “I...I thought about his name...I know that after what we both went through, we didn't want to give the kids a double name, but...”, being a little confused by the hesitant way she approached the topic, Clint raised an eyebrow, “I think we should change that for him. Should name him not only after Natasha but...after that kid as well.”

It had him frozen for a good minute, because he knew damn well whom Laura meant with that kid, there was only one choice, and his breath got stuck in his throat, a swoosh of air, one last smirk, unseeing blue eyes staring right at him. Laura's hand on his face, fingers gently pressing into his jaw, had him snap out of it again, “Clint, are you with me?”  
“Yes.”, he was quick to answer, leaning into her touch, looking down at the sleeping boy again, “Are you sure? We never talked about it...”

“You are here because of him today, Clint, I still have you with me because of that kid. Yes, I am sure.”, they smiled at each other again, like fools, like love sick fools. Clint reached for a tiny little hand and let it curl around his finger as much as it was possible.

“Welcome to the family, Nathaniel Pietro Barton.”

\--

Four weeks later

\--

Steve yelped when Natasha suddenly materialized at his side in the communal kitchens on the housing floor, smiling angelically even when he glared and pressed one hand over his chest.  
“Jesus Christ, Romanoff.”, but before he could have started a rant about manners and how to properly announce one's presence, Natasha raised her left hand holding the phone.

Steve stopped his inner grumbling when he saw the picture attached to the short message, and his features softened immediately, “Judging by the picture, he took his sweet time telling us. He's beautiful.”, Natasha took her phone back and smiled down again at the picture of her godson, “What's the name?”, Steve asked and changed his mission slightly, pouring them both a tea.

“Nathaniel Pietro Barton.”, Natasha spoke in her soft voice, and Steve stopped in his walking over to the table in the corner, lips curling into a broad smile.  
“That will surely mean a lot to him. And Wanda. Laura alright?”, and while Natasha sat down with him, thanking him for the tea before falling into the story Clint had told her over the phone some minutes ago, they weren't aware of the presence of the brunet woman standing just outside the door, now dreamingly smiling to herself.

Wanda had been on her way to get a coffee before walking back to her brother's bedside, but now she threw that plan away and instead hurried back into the medical ward. Quickly closing the door to Pietro's room behind her, she dropped herself into the chair and reached out to take her brother's unmoving hands into her own.

“He hasn't forgotten about us, brother.”, her voice bubbled out of her in Sokovian, tears of joy almost falling over her face, “He still cares, I believe he still cares. Pietro, Barton still cares about us. About you. He hasn't left, not completely.”, she didn't care that she was babbling, that chances were high Pietro wasn't even able to hear her at all, she just had to take the small chance that he might hear her.

“Barton named his son after you. Nathaniel Pietro Barton. He cares, Pietro, he hasn't left us behind. I was wrong, I was wrong.”, and the dam broke and her tears flowed freely down her cheeks now, Wanda hiccuped over a sob and then dropped her head to rest upon her brother's slowly falling and rising chest, “He left, but he didn't leave us behind, not in his head, not in his heart.”

And she sobbed and cried, and for the most part, she didn't even know herself why, but the tiny part in her heart, the tiny locked away part in her heart that was still a child, that had not been forced to grow up way before its time. That tiny part knew exactly why she was breaking now, because for the first time in her life since the bombs had fallen on her home, since the first time since her parents had been killed, someone had left them, but not forgotten about them.

Clint Barton had not left them behind like so many other people had. 

\--

Two days after Clint had called her and sent her the picture of baby Nate, Natasha came back to her rooms from training to a brightly flashing phone and a new set of messages from Laura. Curiosity got the better of her and she reached for her phone instead of taking the long awaited shower first.

'We both know he is still too stubborn to admit that he needs you. But he does. And it's time you meet your godson anyway. I'm not blaming him for these couple of weeks of ultimate peace and family time, but he can't cut us and himself off from the world forever. Get your butt onto a jet, Natasha.'

And then the added picture of Lila cradling her baby brother in her arms while Cooper watched like a hawk over her holding him correctly, where all of them were sitting on the couch in the living room. She found herself grinning down at the small screen of her phone and clutched it in her hands as she whirled around to walk out of her rooms again, turning left to get to Cap, she had to request some time off anyway.

Her left hand knocked on Steve's door while her right hand was already busy typing a reply, she knew Laura didn't like to be kept waiting, not if it was anybody else than Clint, he was the only one allowed to take his time.

'Order received. Asking for permission now. Tell Clint to get the guest room ready.', she hit send and just as Steve called out for her to wait a moment, she assumed he had just left the shower and was searching for clothes, her phone buzzed with another message.

'Kids will do it, we're not telling Clint. See you soon.'

And she wondered what that was all about.

\--

She landed the jet on a meadow not far from the farm, steered it between the trees Clint had been hiding jets under for years already and then set it into hiding modus, the bonus feature Tony had bestowed upon all of their remaining Quinjets before leaving. Wondering how she must look like with those bags hanging off each shoulder, Natasha chuckled to herself and started walking.

She hadn't needed to bring clothes, she had enough stuff at the farm to survive some weeks without laundry, but it felt more like coming home if she packed a bag or two and came with new clothes to wear. And bags of presents. She hadn't even been the first one to think about something to bring to the Barton family, it had been Maria who had pushed a basket with wrapped packages into her hand some hours after Natasha had requested official leave.

And then Steve had followed, and Maria's assistant Sammy Radcliff, each carrying something wrapped for the Barton kids and Laura, all in the exclusive club of members who knew about Barton's family now. Sam and Rhodey had thrown in a set of matching teddy bears. Wanda had materialized in her room the last evening with a self made quilt in purple and black, and a sealed letter that Natasha had known to not be for the kids for sure. When Vision had waited for her outside the Quinjet this morning that had been assigned to her, she had blinked and raised both eyebrows, the AI had been the very last person she would have suspected to give presents to little kids he didn't even know.

He had surprised her even more when he had pulled a neat black case from behind his back and had proceeded to push it into her hands. And during the entire flight and even now as she walked through the trees, she could feel the familiar weight of the bow case settling against her thighs. Laura might have asked her to come visit, but Natasha had learned to read between her friend's message lines a long time ago.

Laura loved her husband, and she knew that he loved her, too. But she hadn't only married Clint Barton, she had married Hawkeye as well, and without his second half, Clint would never entirely be the man she loved more than her own life. And it was time someone came who could show Clint that leaving Hawkeye behind was not an option, not with these women in his life.

She heard the stomping feet and the giggles long before she saw their heads appearing behind the next line of trees, and so Natasha had time enough to drop her bags to the ground to open her arms for Lila and Cooper.  
“Aunt Nat!”, both of them yelled loud enough to blast her ears off as they barreled into her, “We've missed you.”, Cooper rattled on as he let go of her again, already in that age where hugging was good, if it lasted about a nanosecond. He reached for at least half of her bags before she could have stopped him, let alone answered, he was just too much like his mother.

“And I missed you too.”, she said, picking up the black bow case and the basket from Maria before reaching for Lila's hand, the girl, looking so much like a young Laura, had picked up the pretty badly wrapped bears from Sam and Rhodey and was checking it over, probably already very good at guessing what was in it.

“Momma said she heard the jet, she sent us out to fetch you. Dad is in town.”, and well, wasn't that interesting, she thought as they started walking back to the house and Cooper rattled on about this and that.

\--

It seemed Laura's agenda with her was in fact way more cunning than Natasha had first given her credit for, because after greeting her and then keeping the kids from ripping open the presents for them and their little brother, Laura had pushed Nate into her arms and steered her to the couch, telling her two older ones to bring the bags not holding presents up into Natasha's room.

Laura had then turned back to the stove to continue dinner preparations while casually catching Natasha up on what the kids could have missed telling her and letting her introduce herself to her new godson who just slept through it all like the good old Barton boy that he already was.

It wasn't until a while later though that she heard the sounds of the old truck coming closer, Lila and Cooper sitting left and right of her on the couch, both of them bouncing with the energy it took to keep themselves from sniffing around the pile of presents. Laura was humming, dinner cooking on the stove, but moved casually and actually impressively not suspicious really towards the front door when steps walked up the porch.

But then Clint opened the door, arms loaded with grocery bags, looked up, saw her sitting on the couch and froze.  
“Dad, look who came to visit.”, Lila beamed and danced over to her still shell shocked father, who simply passed the bags over to his wife to pick up his brightly grinning daughter, whose quick wink to her mother he didn't see, for he was too busy staring at her.

He looked...not as bad as Natasha had expected him to, scruff on his face, dark bags under his eyes, but those surely were from the little troublemaker in her arms not letting him sleep in the night, and Clint always being out of bed before Laura even woke from the baby crying.  
“What are you doing here?”, well and that had not been what she had expected to hear from him and she raised a questioning eyebrow, while Laura slapped a hand against his arm.  
“Clint!”, she hissed and then threw a smile to Natasha that told her so much more than just an apology for his as always not present manners.

I did what I could, you get to fix the rest. And do it before I kill him.

And the Russian assassin was quickly reminded again on why she had always known Laura to be perfect for her partner, no one had managed to tie Clint Barton down until she had come around and with just some words and a mean little twist of his ear, she had had him falling to his knees in front of her within the first six months.

She was a gentle and quiet woman, who had chosen the silent farm life, had pushed an entire career at Shield away to fulfill the dream of her own family. Natasha had more respect for her than she could muster up for many other woman at the base, maybe except for Pepper, Maria, that sharp tongued assistant of hers and Agent Carter the younger. It had taken courage to brave the life here alone, knowing that his job was putting her husband at risk at almost all times.

But Laura had always been stronger than both of them, had always welcome them home, always opened her house when Natasha had needed to get away, had pieced her back together after Shield had fallen and the farm had been the only safety Natasha had been able to run to, all while Clint had still been missing in Africa.

She knew that Laura cherished every day, every hour, every minute Clint was home with her and the kids, but she also knew how important his job, his destiny, his duty was to Clint, and so it was no miracle that she was growing a little crazy with him seemingly having no intention at all to return to the Avengers.

On her first night, when Clint had gone to tug the children in and had then not returned downstairs, Laura had sighed and shushed her out onto the patio, sitting down with her on the stairs.  
“He told me what happened, every detail. I'm even sure he told me a lot he wasn't even supposed to tell me, clearance wise.”, she had started but Natasha had waved it off, Shield was dead, and it had proven quite perfectly to them what could follow if you didn't trust the people you called family, “He is better now than he was when he arrived back, but he isn't himself. He keeps spacing out, I keep finding him lost in thought on the barn roof. He is not okay, Nat, but there is nothing I can do anymore, this is not something I can fix.”, it must have been so hard to admit it.

“The girls, Pietro...”, she had tried to start an explanation, ready to defend Clint, an instinctual reaction she had programmed into herself, but Laura shook her head and cut her off.  
“No. They may be the reason he left, the reason he needed a break, but they are not the reason on why he won't go back. Don't get me wrong, my grief was just as gruesome, none of us ever imagined a life without them, even though the possibility was there. And I will never stop being grateful for the sacrifice Maximoff gave for this family, but the girls are gone and Pietro lives.”

“So, what is holding him back then?”, she had asked and Laura had shrugged, eyes flickering over to the freshly decked out barn roof in the setting sun.  
“That's what I called you in for. Got time for a mission, Agent Romanoff?”, and Natasha had leaned against her side and had watched the sunset with her.  
“For you, always.”

\--

He avoided her throughout the first couple of days of her visit, and Natasha let him, knowing fully well how he could be when he was thrown out of his comfort zone. She played with the kids, kept them out of Laura's hairs when she needed a moment with the baby, who was by far calmer than his siblings at that age. Clint busied himself with the renovations, went into town for long trips to get more wood and supplies and groceries, and didn't look for a second at the black bow case that still stood where Laura had placed it upon greeting Natasha, right next to the front door.

Her patience only lasted so long though, and on the fifth day of her visit, with Laura gone into the town for Nate's check up and the kids at a birthday party for the afternoon, it was the best moment to confront Clint.

To her surprise, it looked like he had been waiting for her, because the second she stepped around the corner of the barn, to get to where he had been starting to cut a hole through the eastern wall to lay down the start for a guest house, a knife came flying her way that she dodged and caught with practiced ease. And when she threw it back, Clint caught it without looking up from his task.

“We need to talk.”, she announced and then she saw him stiffen for a second, shoulders tense until he forced himself to relax.  
“I guess, we do.”, he agreed and dropped the knife and the saw, before shrugging off his checkered shirt and getting to his feet, “So, how do you wanna do this?”, he asked and turned to face her, all pokerface and hard eyes.  
“The usual way.”, she said to no one's surprise and then came at him.

\--

tbc


	5. A List of Conditions and a Ghost's Return

In the last chapter we stopped with this:

“We need to talk.”, she announced and then she saw him stiffen for a second, shoulders tense until he forced himself to relax.  
“I guess, we do.”, he agreed and dropped the knife and the saw, before shrugging off his checkered shirt and getting to his feet, “So, how do you wanna do this?”, he asked and turned to face her, all pokerface and hard eyes.  
“The usual way.”, she said to no one's surprise and then came at him.

\--

She didn't let him win, the fire, the tension, the sheer amount of built up frustration and desperation, it had surprised even her, and after half an hour of vicious sparring, a cut lip on his side and a darkening bruise on her jaw, Clint had her pinned into the grass. None of them was really that out of breath and she realized with not slight satisfaction that he had kept in shape.  
“You ready to answer some question now?”, she breathed up at him, and then jumped back to her feet when he got up onto his own.

“Why did you run?”, Natasha asked after Clint had leaned back against the barn, blue eyes watching her in stubbornness, “Why did you run away from me? I get it that you didn't want the others to see your demons, but dammit, Clint, you're my best friend. Why couldn't you trust me with your problems?”, it was only fair that she was angry, Clint hadn't expected anything else.

“I trusted you. I always trusted you, and I will always trust you, that is why I had to go, and you know that.”, he shot back just as easily, on some days yelling was the only way they could communicate, it used to drive Steve crazy. Natasha sighed and then threw up her hands like Lila did when she couldn't get her way, Clint had often wondered who had gotten it from whom.

“Of course I knew. I knew when you left, I knew why you left, I knew where you had gone to, it still doesn't mean I had to like it.”, she clarified and sent him a smirk, “Wanna talk about it?”, Clint weighed on his chances for a moment, but she would probably just knock him to the ground a second time for not saying the truth, so he talked.

Talked about Sokovia for the first time. Talked about seeing Pietro die. Talked about knowing he was going to die himself on that shuttle ship. Talked about the moment where he woke up and she hadn't been there, but it had been Stark who had greeted him back to the world of the living and had told him that Pietro had lived. Stark, not her. Natasha cringed at that, but she didn't need to explain herself, Clint knew by now that she had been looking for Banner.

He talked about the choking feeling that he had brought back home from Sokovia, the nightmares, the sleepless nights, the never ending questions in his head, the panic that had fallen over him every single time he had picked up his bow. And after a moment of hesitation he even told her about the night after she had confronted him in the woods outside the base.

“I have no idea how much time I spent in that shower, water pouring down on me, but I remember the feeling of it choking me, pushing me down, of being entirely unable to get up again. When I got through again, I fled for the beam in the training's hall, but it didn't go away.”, he explained and when he was done, Natasha was standing right in front of him, one hand cupping his face.

“So you did the only thing you still had left, you came back home.”, Natasha spoke quietly and he nodded, pulling both arms up to wrap around her waist.  
“Yes, I came back home. And one second after stepping out of the car, I could breathe again, Tasha.”, she smiled at her nickname, “Nothing has been fixed, I'm still a mess, but here I can breathe, I can think, I can do something.”

“But not sleep.”, she interrupted and he sighed, caught as always, “I don't need Laura to tell me, Clint, I know you, I can see it in your eyes.”, slipping out of his embrace to bring some steps between them again.  
“Not every night, no, but that is nothing new to you. We have demons, we have monsters in our past. I am allowed a nightmare or two, but I am not letting myself be controlled by them anymore. I'm not slipping, Nat, I owe it to Pietro to live.”, she nodded, no smart remark on her lips when she saw how serious he was for a change.

“And the girls.”, he continued and ignored the way Natasha winced, the wound still open in her heart as well, no matter how hard she tried to pretend it wasn't, “I owe it to them to keep going, to someday have the strength to search for answers. For them, for me, for you, and for Laura.”  
"What did you tell Cooper and Lila?", Natasha wanted to know and looked towards the sun slowly setting from its peek.  
"About the girls? Working, a mission that takes longer.", he explained and avoided to look at her, knowing that she wouldn't be happy about it. Natasha had always valued the truth above everything else.

"Clint..."

"What did you want me to say? That we don't know if they are dead or alive? That we lost them? That they gave up looking for them because it's like running against a wall? That they are instead putting that money into another missing person's case just because that one is a little bit more dangerous and needs to be stopped?”, he wasn't truly angry over so much attention going towards finding the Winter Soldier, he knew the guy needed all the help he could get, “That I can't do anything to find my girls and bring the sisters home that my children miss every single day? You were here when I had to explain to Coop that Phil is dead. You saw his face, you staid up with me when the nightmares came. For weeks. And you weren't here when I had to have the same talk with Lila. Lila! Telling her that uncle Phil would not come back."

It hadn't been pretty, between his two older children, Cooper had always been the laid back, realistic one, he was coming after Laura, calm and level headed and patient. Both of his feet stood firm on the ground of reality, even as a little child. Lila was a dreamer, full of hope and wishes, a storm of joy and happiness and a temper she had clearly gotten from her father. Phil's death had hit her hard, and Clint could still hear her screams sometimes.

"They will ask someday.", Natasha pointed out and he nodded, catching green eyes.  
"And I intend to have answers then, but for now I am not telling my children that more people died because the job took Dad away from them.", it was on the tip of her tongue, he could see it, the old arguments of it not having been his fault, that there was nothing he could have done to prevent it, but he was grateful that she wasn't speaking them. They both knew that sometimes he needed the guilt to keep his feet on the ground, she would only step in when it got too much again.

Silence reigned over them for a long moment, while Clint stared out over the horizon and tried to swallow down the choking feeling in his throat, and while Natasha stared at him, reading his every thought. She had never needed any superpowers for that, just the knowledge and safety of over a decade of friendship.

“You can't stay away, Clint.”, Natasha broke the silence with the words he had heard deep inside his heart since weeks now, “You've been a part of this for too long already. And we need you.”, and she spoke the words that ripped the last walls in his head and heart away, and he thought back to the conversation he had had with Laura as they had watched Tony and Steve chop wood (or rip apart with bare hands in Steve's case, that splinter had been the amusement of the entire evening).

I see you with the Avengers, and, well...  
You don't think they need me?  
Actually, I think they do. They're gods, and they need someone to keep them down to Earth.

“Steve is a good leader.”, Natasha continued, tucking her hands against her hip and looking so much like Laura for a second that Clint couldn't help but wonder if she did it on purpose or on accident. Both scenarios were frightening, “But he is young, and we're not the army. We're a bunch of issue fucked idiots. The team needs a captain and a Dad. The team needs you.”

I need you.

It had always been the words Natasha had not spoken that had the tendency to get under his skin and Clint sighed, turning around and sacking forward to thud his forehead against the wooden wall of the barn. But the decision had already been formed in his head before she had even turned up, he had always known that he had only lied to himself.

You could run from your enemies. Run from your problems, ignore responsibilities and duties. Turn a blind eye on mistakes and wrong turned missions. But you couldn't run from yourself.

“You need us, just as much as we need you. You stopped being simple Clint Barton a long long time ago, Clint. Hawkeye is not an alias, it's part of who you are. And Hawkeye belongs to the Avengers, but even more does Clint Barton belong to the Avengers.”

Two more thuds against the wall.

It was as if something was loosened in his chest, was unlocked the moment Natasha had spoken those fateful words, we need you, still had a reason for him, no one had ever said it, no one aside from Laura, no one on the job. And who was he kidding, there hadn't been a day where he had not thought about them at least once, always caging the thought away the second it had appeared, but it had been there.

Then Clint turned around, straightened up his spine and looked back up, a first hesitant smirk on his face.

“You still got room to terrorize some newbies?”, he sighed and Natasha smiled, both of them knew that it was only the beginning. Sokovia's wounds would not heal from simply pretending it was all okay.

“Are we okay?”, Natasha sobered up then again, taking him by surprise, especially when he saw the hesitance on her face, lips pulling his smile bigger, he reached out with both hands.  
“Come here.”, and as so often before, Natasha let herself fall into his arms, and buried her face in the crook of his neck, “We're okay, we're good. We'll always be okay.”

\--

Later that day, as they sat around the kitchen table (the paint on the walls in the dining room was still drying after Clint had redone them for the third time that year), dinner already finished, Nate asleep in the crib in the living room and Lila and Cooper chasing fireflies outside, the three of them had pulled out a bottle of wine and that one obligatory beer for Clint.

“You're going back.”, Laura changed the topic of conversation so abruptly that Clint and Natasha both turned to gape at her, where they had previously bickered back and forth, “Oh, don't look at me like that. I'm gone barely three hours and when I come back the two of you are suddenly all best friends forever again, where it was pretty much obvious that someone...”, she says it in that special motherly tone she solely reserved for when her husband had been especially idiotic again, “has been going immensely out of his way to avoid Natasha before. I figure she finally got you to talk.”

Clint set his beer down and dragged both hands over his face, coming to rest his elbows on the table top and his face hidden behind his hands.  
“Laura...”, he sighed and then blew out a breath, but Laura didn't love him for nothing, reaching towards him she pulled one of his hands down and intertwined their fingers tightly, grounding him to the warmth of his home.  
“I'm here, Clint, I'll always be here, and I'm happy. I know that you needed to get away, for a while, but I knew right from the start that it wouldn't be forever. And it doesn't make you love us any less.”, she added after she had seen the protest in blue eyes, “I love you, I married you and I only want what is best for you. And the Avengers, Shield or whatever it may be called now, that is what you do best, saving people, hunting down the bad guys. It's not only your job, it's part of who you are.”, they looked at each other, a whole new conversation passing unspoken between them in that moment.

But when they broke apart, Clint turned to Natasha, eyes suspicious, “She set you up for this. You didn't just come to visit, she called you in.”, instead of sounding accusing, he sounded relieved and Natasha smiled, exchanging a grin with the satisfied woman sitting across from her.  
“I always follow her orders, because contrary to us, she is always right. And look what it got me now, I got my partner back.”, he growled quietly but both women laughed, he didn't like it when they teamed up against him, always left him in the wrong.

But he also loved it, because they were a force to be reckoned with, and he was never able to slip into the dark for too long as long as they were in his life.  
“It won't be easy, I can't promise that I won't run again.”, he said then, looking at Natasha, before turning to Laura, “And I can't promise that I won't come home hurt and lost again.”  
“But you will come, and that is all I want, Clint, all I ever wanted. You come home, and we'll deal with the rest.”, Laura promised and Clint sighed again, “I have one condition though.”, and Natasha and Clint both sat up straighter.

“We're not being kept the state's biggest secret anymore. I don't want it yelled from the rooftops that Hawkeye has a family living on a farm somewhere, but I want people at Shield to know. I want the Avengers to know, the old and new. This organization was built by you guys now, it consists of people you trust, and I want a safety net. For Clint, for myself and even more so for the kids. And phone calls, let Stark fly in and let him install some gadgets around here to make it safe, but I want the kids to see your face and hear your voice.”, Clint groaned and thumped his forehead to the table as Natasha swiftly got up and pulled her StarkPhone from the highest shelf in the corner, where it had landed after Lila had gotten entirely too worked up on Candy Crush a day earlier.

“I'm making a list.”, the redhead whispered down at him, while Laura thought for a moment, Clint groaned again.  
“Skype calls and phone calls.”, she started up again, “A visit at least once a month, even if it's just for some hours, homecomings for the important school events, birthdays and Christmas. You let them give you your own Quinjet, yeah that would be best.”, Clint turned his head to the side to quirk an eyebrow at Natasha, as Laura got really started, “You saved the world, you can make some demands. And we can visit you, during the school holidays, make a road trip out of it, the kids will love it. And I trust Stark, the base is secret, hidden and probably safer than Fort Knox and the Avengers Tower combined. Lila has been nagging my ears off about seeing the team again anyway. And oh, I don't care if the world is ending or if the president is being slaughtered or if the worst blizzard is reigning down on New York, the team is coming to the farm for Thanksgiving.”

Natasha paused in her typing to raise both eyebrows at Laura and even Clint turned to stare at his wife, “Make that rule number one actually.”  
“Wait, these are rules now?”, Clint wanted to know and straightened up again, “I thought you had conditions.”  
“It's both, sweetheart.”, Laura smiled and patted his cheek, Natasha snickered, “Someone calls me after a mission, if he got hurt, preferably not Clint.”, she said to Natasha, certainly not to him, Clint huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, “Either you or Rogers. And if both of you are hurt, Steve will call me even before debriefing Hill or whoever is put in charge of that now.”

“Shouldn't we ask Steve if he's okay with that?”, Clint dared to interrupt, but was shushed immediately, pouting petulantly he grabbed his beer again and took a long sip.  
“Don't be ridiculous, Steve will follow orders, he is a soldier. And when that Maximoff kid wakes up, you get him and his sister on a Skype call. Introduce them properly, to me and the kids.”, saluting to her while he was swallowing, Clint leaned back in his chair.  
“Yes, Ma'am.”, he replied and then shuddered, Natasha cackling in front of him, probably remembering the same image of a furious Maria Hill bearing down on a shot and beaten Clint after he had returned from a mission three days late, and then she had leaned in to hug him and Clint had truly believed right then that he would die.

Laura snapping her fingers in front of his face, pulled him back, “Get back here, I'm not finished yet. Before you leave, you will either finish that second door in the barn or fix it. And you'll leave a fucking list this time, Cooper is old enough to do some things on his own, and we all know that he is damn interested and willing to as well.”, and then she turned silent, and for a moment Clint suspected that she was done and had run out of energy and fire, but he was mistaken when she opened her eyes again and bestowed them both with a teary eyed look, “And if by some miracle there is any word about...the girls, even the smallest hint or sign, then I want to know, Clint.”

He got up from his chair and crouched down next to her without a moment of hesitation, wiping the one single tear away with his thumb that fell over her cheek, “Right away, Clint, promise me. I love them just as much as you do, and if there is the smallest chance that they might be alive still, then I want to know. Or if there is proof that they are truly dead, then I want to know as well. Promise me.”, pulling her down gently, he cupped her face on both sides and then kissed her.

“I promise you.”, he swore, blue eyes boring into her brown ones, “I promise you all of it. We'll make it work, we always do.”, she stroked a hand through his blond hair, “Alright, I have a condition as well, and a demand.”  
“Shoot, Barton.”, Natasha quipped and swiped her thumb over the screen of her phone, ready to make another list.  
“It doesn't get called Shield.”, he declared his opinion and Natasha looked up, “They can call it whatever they want in the public eye or in their own personal conversation, but I am not coming back if the official name has anything to do with Shield. Shield is dead, and it should stay dead. Shield made too many mistakes and I am not coming back to work for Shield, I am coming back to work for the Avengers.”, Natasha nodded, before she frantically typed something down.

“Alright, and now for the demand.”, Clint pushed himself back to a standing position, “Get your jackets, bundle up Nate and meet me at the barn in ten minutes.”, leaving them behind with confused faces, Clint strode over to the front door and under their even more surprised looks picked up the black bow case and walked outside.

\--

Ten minutes later, Laura knew the man standing in front of her was still her husband and would always be her husband, the man she had married and still loved as much as on the first day. Nate slept peacefully in her arms and Cooper leaned sleepily against her side, Lila shrieked merrily and happily on Natasha's shoulders, grinning just as much as her aunt, clapping her small hands excitedly. 

And in front of them, Clint pulled back to let another arrow fly, and it sailed up to the roof of the barn, hit the target on point, and another balloon with the candle lit paper lantern soared into the sky. Maybe he was not completely okay yet, maybe Clint still needed some time to figure out who he was now, but at least she knew one thing. He was still the man of her heart.

He was still Hawkeye.

\--

On base, life went on as usual as well, and Steve Rogers found himself too busy most of the time to even have time to think about how far he still was from finding his best friend, leadership meant paperwork that Maria did not always take off his back, and he took great pleasure in overseeing the training of their new additions.

Just like this afternoon, though Vision was gone, having checked out earlier in the day to make a trip to New York, presumably to see Tony after the billionaire hadn't picked up any of their calls in the last days. Steve wasn't too worried, he knew Tony had a lot to think about, a lot to fix in his home and head, and he would wait until his friend felt ready to return. Wanda was practicing the ongoing control over her powers, cheeky enough to distract her teammates once in a while. Sam and Rhodey had started another round of bickering while they sparred, getting along perfectly.

It had been Clint who had proposed that they had a lot in common, mostly the idiotic suicidal friend with a hero complex and not enough care for himself. Steve would have punched him back then, but the archer had still been laying in medical on the helicarrier hovering over their then still constructing new base.

And without really intending to, he had to think back to the first few moments after the city of Sokovia had been destroyed and the battle had been over. Think back to the moment where they had come close to losing another one of them, way too close.

\--

Flashback Start

\--

Steve let his breath out in a loud huff, slumping against the closest railing when the last civilian was safely off the shuttle and inside the safe community rooms in the helicarrier. The battle was over, the world was saved and he felt as if he could sleep for months.

He hadn't stopped to think about anything since Ultron's bots had come at them from all sides, he had acted on instinct and memory alone, but now the meaning of it all, the scenarios of what could have been, they crashed over him. And most of all his mind snapped back to the moment where he had seen the silver haired kid fall to the ground, body littered with bullet holes that had been meant for Clint.

Pietro was dead. He had lost a teammate. Dragging both hands over his face, blue eyes caught sight of Vision carrying the lifeless body of Pietro Maximoff into the next entrance of the helicarrier, Wanda following him on robotic feet, no life, no energy anymore in her face as well.

Pushing himself off the railing with a deep sigh, Steve let his shoulders drop as he walked over to where he had last seen Clint slump into a seat, the only teammate he had seen in the last hour or so. He wondered where Natasha and Bruce were, if Tony had made it out okay, if Thor was on board yet, but he was just so tired, every muscle screaming. He had pushed himself beyond his limits, even the serum seemed to have one, he just wanted to sleep, to step back and let others handle the consequences for a change.

But as he stumbled around the last corner to get to Clint, he sobered up so quickly that his head got dizzy for a moment before panic took over.  
“Cap, get over here!”, Tony Stark yelled at him, kneeling on the ground in front of one of the benches, Iron Man suit half on and half off, but Steve just stared at him for a way too long moment, his brain unable to process the image.

“Rogers!!”, Tony bellowed, “Snap the fuck out of it and help me, or we will lose him as well!”, his ears were still ringing with panic, panic, panic and blood, god where had all the blood come from, but he managed to move and roughly feel to his knees next to Tony, “Put your hand here, keep the pressure steady.”, Tony ordered him and Steve followed blindly, pressing his hand down on Clint's waist where blood was gushing from what looked suspiciously like a bullet wound.

“What happened?”, he stuttered past his lips, Clint had been okay, the last time he had seen him, sitting down next to Pietro's body, defeated and exhausted and lost, but physically fine.  
“Don't know, found Vision and the witch take the Speedster's body inside, they told me that Barton was still on the shuttle. I came to see how he was doing.”, Tony rushed through his words while ripping off straps of his simple black shirt, “Found him unconscious and bleeding out.”

“In the bullet hail that killed Pietro...one of them must have gotten past him.”, Tony grunted in agreement and then started to wrap the improvised bandage around Clint's waist, jolted by the movements Clint's body convulsed and he gasped awake with a pained cry.  
“Hey, hey, Barton, easy there.”, Tony soothed, one hand pushing the archer's chest down again, “It's Tony and Steve, we got you, just keep breathing for us.”, his fingers finished off the tight knot, and then he turned to Steve, “Okay, lemme switch with you. You can still carry him?”

Steve hated himself for hesitating, but then he quickly nodded, he would have to, he would have to pull on his last reserves to get Clint to medical, he couldn't lose another part of his team. He couldn't lose another friend, never again.

Clint let out a bloodcurdling scream when Tony and Steve shifted him into the Captain's arms, but Tony was quick to babble on again, one hand steady on the wound, one hand in blond hair, “Come on Barton, stay with us, you got a family, man. You need to hold on. You're the only one of us who truly has something to lose, you gotta fight.”, so close, Steve thought, drowning Tony out slightly, the door was so close, and right behind the next corner the medical ward would begin, so close.

They never made it through the door, one moment Clint was gasping and gritting his teeth, slipping in and out of awareness and in the next his body convulsed so heavily that Steve nearly dropped him. And then it all went to hell, a violent set of seizures took over Clint's battered body and Steve fell to his knees, losing hold on Clint and letting him slip to the ground, Tony was there within the blink of an eye.

“Get his legs, hold them down.”, he yelled at Steve who was so grabbed by ice cold panic that he simply followed the order given to him, Tony pressed one hand over the wound gushing with new blood and one hand went to his ear, “Avenger down. I repeat, Avenger down. We need immediate medical help on deck A. Hawkeye is down!”

\--

Flashback End

\--

Steve was pulled roughly out of his memories by a whizzing sound and he yelped, quite unmanly. when the arrow flew so close by his ear that he could feel the metal gliding by his skin, whirling around he only saw the three stunned faces of the others though. Rhodey and Sam stopped their sparring, while Wanda had frozen with her hands still outstretched to catch them both off guard, like it had been planned.

"You're slacking off, Cap.", the voice came a second later and Clint dropped out of the vent with an ease and the familiar cockiness that he hadn't had for months, bow over one shoulder and an arrow still in the other hand.  
"Barton!", what was intended as a growl came out as a surprised smile though, and Clint grinned back at him, "Needed a break from the cries of an infant?", his joke was met with an even more familiar roll of gray blue eyes.  
"Actually...if you still have room, I'd like to have my job back.", Clint quipped though his eyes were serious, maybe even a little desperate.

The silence after his words were broken when Wanda's shoes clattered over the ground with her quick steps as she crossed the hall over to them, giving Clint barely a second to push back the arrow until she threw herself into his arms, her arms falling around his neck as he hugged her close, only now realizing how much he had missed her. Steve grinned and clapped him on the back.

"Welcome back to duty, Agent Barton."

\--

“Can I come in?”, looking up from her book, Wanda let her lips break into a bright smile again when she saw Clint leaning casually against the door frame, looking so much more alive and alright than when she had last seen him.  
“Why are you even asking, of course you can.”, she grinned at him and kicked out the chair that she had used to lay up her feet, turning it around again with a slight twist of her wrist so that it faced her brother's bed.

Clint stepped into the room and let the glass door fall shut, “How is the idiot doing?”, he asked and let himself slump into the chair, letting his head drop back to look at her, Wanda rolled her eyes.  
“Pretty sure he would run away from it all as well if he could.”, she smirked and Clint winced, “It's okay, Clint. I understand, I really do. Natasha and Steve, they explained quite a lot, told me about New York and Thor's brother.”, but before he could have said anything, apologized, her hand touched his cheek and Wanda put her book to the side.

“Seriously, no need to apologize, you needed a break. We're all humans, Clint, we can't always deal with everything.”, he sat up straighter again and opened his arms when she walked around him, letting her settle upon his thighs before wrapping both arms around her again, god he had missed them so much.  
“When did you become so smart and wise?”, he laughed and she poked his side, “Thank you, Wanda, it means a lot. Now, for real, how is he?”

“Better, they say his brain activity has gone up in the last week. Doctor Cho said his chances for waking up are getting higher now, he hasn't had a fever in over three weeks. There is hope.”, she said and turned her eyes towards the pale unmoving face of her twin brother, but she smiled.  
“You still can't hear him?”, Clint wanted to know, resting his chin on her shoulder, Wanda shook her head.

“No, I can't, but I am beginning to think he is keeping me out on purpose, that he doesn't want me to see him fight.”, Clint chuckled upon her pouting voice.  
“Big brothers do that sometimes.”, he pointed out, not thinking of the brother he had lost but of the sister he had gained so many years ago in Budapest.

“It's stupid.”, Wanda concluded and they both laughed, “Thank you.”, she said after a moment and wriggled around until she could look at him, “Thank you for coming back, we really need you still.”  
“Always gonna be here, kiddo.”, he promised and held her look for a long moment.  
“And your son, it means a lot that you named him after my brother.”, he raised an eyebrow, having planned on telling her in the moment, seemed like secrets were still impossible to keep on base, but then again, she could read thoughts, “I didn't fish it out of their heads, you know.”, Wanda suspected correctly what he had been thinking about, “I literally eavesdropped on Cap and Natasha.”

And that was just too good that Clint had to laugh again, hiding his face in Wanda's hair, she blushed and resolutely stared at her brother's steadily rising and falling chest until he was done.  
“God, I missed this place.”, he admitted and she grinned at him again, getting one in return.  
“Can I see a picture?”, she asked then, curious and maybe even a little shy, Clint thought for a moment and then even as his hand had already reached for his phone in the pocket of the hoodie he was wearing, he stopped.

“I think, I know a better way than just a photo.”, Wanda frowned at his strange wording, but then as he smiled at her, she gasped and reached up to grab his arms, keeping herself steady as the blank wall around his thoughts broke away and the images and memories crashed over her. For the first time, she was able to see into his head, just because he had let her in. And the tears rolled down her cheeks in so many emotions she couldn't name as she saw the farm and his family, the laughs of his children, the toothless grin of the baby boy he had named after his best friend and the kid who had saved his life.

She knew what it was worth, knew what it meant and when she had seen enough and pulled back again, she leaned into the embrace again, dropped her head to his shoulder and cried. No one beside her brother had ever shown so much trust in her, no one had ever felt so much like home like Pietro had, like the few memories she still had of her parents.  
“No one is ever lost.”, Clint's voice whispered into her ear as he held her, her tears of joy and happiness seeping into his shirt, “No one is alone and no one is ever lost, not as long as there are still people who care about you. Not as long as there is still a place for you to call home.”

\--

When Steve stepped into the door a little under an hour later, he let his lips curl into a smile upon finding two members of his team out cold on the ratty old couch he had carried into the room some weeks earlier. Clint was sitting on one end of the thing, head thrown back, legs sprawled wide onto the ground, snoring quietly, completely tuckered out. On his lap, head resting on a soft pillow, Wanda had turned her face into the archer's stomach, her body hidden under a soft blue blanket.

One of Clint's hand had settled on top of her head, fingers still entangled in brunet strands of hair, he must have fallen asleep still stroking through it, his other hand was tightly being held by both of Wanda's on her stomach. Steve smiled brighter and lowered the light, hitting the switch that tinted the windows black so that the sun wouldn't wake them in the morning, before walking over to the steadily breathing body of Pietro.

“You gotta wake up, kid. Lots of people miss you here, we need you.”, patting the younger man's shoulder, he turned to walk from the room again, switching off the light entirely and closing the door behind himself. He had always had a difficult relationship with hope, too many times hope had brought nothing but pain and terror into his life, but then he had given up hoping one time, and life had dealt him the biggest miracle that could have been possible.

It still didn't mean that Steve Rogers had started to believe in miracles, but if Bucky was able to come back from the dead, changed as he was though, then it was entirely not too much to hope for Pietro to wake up soon. He hoped it for the team, and mostly for Clint and Wanda.

\--

Later that night, Clint was the one who found the note practically hanging on the fence at the main gate, out for an early run when he couldn't sleep, in direct view of the security cameras and that was going to have a serious investigation and lecture following. It was bad enough no one on the watch guard had seen the man, but damn it by god, why did they have security cameras if someone could bypass them.

All the way back to the base buildings, he could hear Tony freaking out already, he would not be there when that conversation was happening, or he would be there, popcorn bowl in his hand. Security breaches were a difficult topic with Stark these days.

Steve looked at him with wide and shocked eyes when Clint barged into his office that morning, with the sun barely over the treetops of the forest around them, clearly not expecting anyone else to be up yet, but Clint simply dropped the weather worn paper onto his desk.

"You got mail. I'll be down in the security office, punching some people if you wanna talk about it."

Steve frowned after him for a moment, but then uncurled the messily folded piece of paper. The handwriting was a nightmare, the words were scraped into the paper, not drawn upon it. There was dirt all over it as well, but the meaning, the meaning was clear as the sky above them. And though there was no name, no symbol, no nothing, there was no question on who had managed to stick a note to their freaking front gate without being seen.

'Stop looking for me. I'll come when I'm ready.'

tbc


	6. A Captain's Offer and an Anti-Retirement Pep-Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of talking for now, before shit goes down in Part 2  
> but still a lot of important conversations

“So, this is what life is like now.”, Clint started as he stopped in front of the fridge in the communal living room on the top floor of the new base, the one solely reserved for the Avengers and their closest friends, “The kids go out to party and the old men stay home and watch TV.”, he continued and rummaged through the full fridge until he found the beer.

“You wanna go and hit the road?”, throwing a look over to the couch, where Steve leaned his head up to look at him, Clint snorted and closed the fridge again.  
“Fuck, no, I'm tired.”, the archer complained and walked back to the couch, the TV was already set on the replay of the baseball game from earlier that day.

It had been a long first week back, Natasha had personally whipped his ass back into top form, and he had gladly jumped back into helping with the training of the new ones. He spent a whole lot of time helping out wherever he could, glared at Natasha when she whipped out comments about his sudden interest in paperwork and waved off Steve when he raised his eyebrows in confusion.

“And somehow.”, Clint spoke up once more as he sat down on the couch next to Steve and handed over one of the beer bottles, “Somehow I doubt Sam and Rhodey would have been so happy about us joining, they seemed quite keen on having one evening off.”, he chuckled and took a first long sip of the cold beer.

“You mean away from us.”, Steve looked over to him and held his bottle out for Clint to clink his against it, Clint nodded. Sam and Rhodey had both ditched them the second Steve had offered them the chance of a free evening off base, last they had heard from them was a short message Sam had send to Steve's phone with a picture of two beers added to it, they weren't really expecting them back until the next morning.

Natasha and Maria had more or less kidnapped Wanda for a women's night out that Pepper had called for after she had gotten back into New York from a long conference, and with Vision once more visiting their still silent billionaire, Clint and Steve had gladly taken the chance to lay low for one evening.

Or lay low as good as it was possible under the circumstances, Steve still left free falling after that note from Bucky, Clint still up in the air over his missing girls and the still not changed status of Pietro Maximoff. It just was a mess, as always, and maybe that was why it felt so familiar and why it was so easy for them to relax. A mess they could deal with, had been born to deal with, everything would have been out of their comfort zone.

They don't talk about Pietro though, both of them are up in the medical ward on a daily basis often enough, both of them seeking the silence and peace inside the small room, because it was the only place where no one would bother them for a change. Steve as the Avenger's leader and somehow head of whatever they had built up here, and Clint who had suddenly been shoved into a right hand kind of position without even wanting to, let alone be asked to take that spot.

But once Clint had realized on what had happened and how much paperwork that fucking meant, it had been too late to complain, most of all because Steve had looked so fucking grateful and relieved to have somewhere doing this job he could trust. And you try and disappoint Captain America when he was looking at you like that, even Maria couldn't keep up her facade of a kick-ass cold-hearted bitch, when Steve turned puppy eyes up to level 8, it was seriously worth it to pin it against Laura one of these days.

And when he had accepted this new inofficial position, stopped wondering on why Natasha wasn't jumping for this chance, he got surprised on how easy it was to forget things for a while when filling out a horrendously terrifying amount of 'necessary' paperwork. So many goddamn files, he had gotten a whole new level of respect for Phil. 

They don't talk about Shield's missing and now soon to be declared dead Strike Team Alpha, because Clint doesn't want to really, and Steve respects that. They do talk about the ghost hunting down Hydra cells in Europe though, while the baseball game really started off. They had gotten news from their colleagues at Interpol (mostly because they still owed Clint like a trillion of favors for nearly killing him four times in one hour for no fucking reason) that someone was destroying and blowing up hidden Hydra hideouts for weeks already without leaving so much as half a fingerprint.

Clint had had the most fun in drily pointing out that metal didn't leave freaking prints, while Steve had face-palmed next to him in the call conference and had quietly muttered something about 'anyone telling them what gloves are'. The files of those attacks had been mailed over to them and were still laying open and disheveled on the couch table, because when you're leading an organization the job never stopped, but it was still an upgrade knowing you had control now and that it would be damn near impossible for Hydra to weasel its in behind your back again when it was yourself pulling the damn strings alongside Captain 'I don't trust anyone outside my team anymore' America.

There had been nothing new in the files though, nothing new for Clint to find anyway, not for someone who had seen this kind of work for near to two decades, who had done these kinds of things for near to two decades already himself. Sometimes even with his own bare hands.  
“You knew the Winter Soldier.”, Steve clarified for himself mostly and put his beer down again as Clint stretched his arms out to reach for the darts, Natasha had hammered the dartboard to the wall over the TV herself when the holes in the wall had started to drive her crazy.

“In a way, yes.”, Clint said and threw the first dart, landing it solidly in the center, Steve didn't even look anymore, “I knew the Soldier, I didn't know who he was, let alone who Bucky Barnes was, wouldn't know who that was until I met Phil. The first time I met the Soldier, I was 17, had been working for a mercenary company for a year already. I was sent to gather money a Romanian politician owed the Russian mafia.”, leaning back on the couch, Clint smiled despite the serious topic. 

He always smiled when he talked about the Russian mafia, because they were a bunch of fucking morons with death wishes, “The Soldier saved my life.”, he continued and Steve raised both eyebrows in surprise, “There are unspoken rules in the underground world. It might look like chaos and mayhem, backstabbing and treachery behind every corner, but that's an image for the outside world. In truth, if you are one of them, no matter how long, no matter how good or bad, they have your back.”, which had saved his life, Natasha's life, the girls' lives, probably even Bucky's freaking life, more times than he could count.

“The Soldier was a ghost even there, not many had ever seen him, but everyone believed he existed. There was no doubt. That world is full of shadows and ghosts, and he was the best.”, still is, Clint added in his mind, no need to get into that discussion with Steve again.  
“You were an assassin for hire.”, blinking upon the interesting quite of information Steve had pulled from that moment of story time, Clint turned to look at him, throwing the next two darts completely blind. 

“Long before I joined Shield. I was what the Soldier was for Hydra and the Red Room, only difference, I got to keep my memory and I wasn't owned by anyone. But yes, I killed for a living, Hawkeye was an assassin and still is.”, he liked to remind people from time to time that Natasha was not the only one among their ranks who could kill you with a paperclip, people had the tendency to see him and pin him down as a slightly better than usual goodie two shoes Shield agent, which he wasn't and had never ever been. 

Steve snorted and leaned further back into the couch, once again not impressed and maybe Clint should have given him more credit. Steve had proven to him already that he saw people for who they really were, not the act they pulled for the public eye, he sure had realized already that Hawkeye was not solely an archer, but an assassin extraordinaire right up there with the Black Widow and their new favorite past time hunting game the Winter Soldier.  
“If you're expecting anything from me right now, it's not going to happen, Clint. You proved to me that you are my ally and more importantly my friend, and all of us made mistakes. It's important who we are now, not where we came from...How did you meet him?”, the abrupt change from sincere pep talk to almost shy question left Clint speechless for a short moment, but he quickly caught himself again, landing another dart on the board.

“Hawkeye was a name in this shady world that quickly made its round.”, he explained with not a small amount of smug in his voice, “It was near impossible to find someone who hadn't heard of me already. Cocky scrawny little teenager, dubbed to be the best marksman in the world, and well...the bow and arrow was kinda sticking out a little. Made the job easier sometimes and damn near fucked sometimes as well.”, he grimaced in memories of some of those occasions, but Steve's curious face prompted him to go on.

“So there I was, trying to slip into the house of this corrupt politician when this man comes at me, out of freaking nowhere, built like a fucking bear. Tackles me out of the window and then down the fire escape, and not a second later the whole building goes up in flames. My ears are ringing, and I'm pretty sure the fall gave me a concussion back then, but nothing sobers you up than looking at the man wit the mask and goggles hovering over you. I knew the stories, knew all of them, admired them, wanted to be everything this man was. And there I was, sitting bleeding and half knocked out in front of the Winter Soldier. He vanished into the shadows not a moment later, left me alone in that dark alley, but...It was never a ghost story for me, Steve, not after that.”

He didn't put it into words that for him it had never really been a ghost story to begin with, because his teenage self had wanted nothing more than to flee from the world as it was, and this legendary assassin, he had sounded just like what Clint had wanted to be. Feared and admired, a legend, a ghost, everything and nothing at the same time, nothing more than his name needed to have people running for their lives. His hope for an easier life had been nothing to have him believe.

“When was the last time you saw him before the TV news reels of DC?”, with both of them settled back comfortably on the couch and shaking their heads subconsciously over the happenings on the TV, it sounded like the weirdest downtime topic ever, but their lives had always been strange.  
“Budapest.”, Clint answered with a grin and Steve smirked himself, it was a code word for inside jokes already, because among the core members only Tony didn't know so far what exactly had happened in the Hungarian capital, and that mostly because Natasha liked to mess with him.

Clint had even told Wanda and Pietro already, even though the latter would probably need to hear it again when he was actually awake and aware.  
“Natasha...”, Steve wanted to clarify nevertheless and Clint nodded, reached for his beer again.  
“Yes, he was there. I don't know why, I don't know who sent him, but he was there. Watching me while I had the arrow nodged to take Natasha out. Maybe he was there for me, maybe for her, maybe for someone completely else, but the whole time that I spent shadowing Natasha and then talking her down, I felt eyes on me. I caught a glimpse of him finally when I pushed Natasha into the helicopter.”, and he still got shivers from only thinking about it.

“Did Natasha know?”, the question came from Steve's lips while blue eyes narrowed at the decisions from the team captain on the TV, Clint grimaced.  
“No. Not until I came back from Africa, saw the news reels and found a phone to call the farm. So not until we knew it was Bucky.”, it was the one thing concerning the Winter Soldier that Clint had always kept secret from her, mostly because he still didn't know what to make of it, still didn't know for whom he had been there.

“How did that turn out for you?”, Steve wanted to know and Clint made it short.  
“Painful.”, and Steve laughed, tension rolling off his shoulders finally as he let himself relax into the couch, and Clint grinned in satisfaction. Natasha had yelled at him for two hours straight and loud enough that Tony had sought him out afterwards to know if he needed to get him somewhere safe and remote to protect him from his partner.

But Clint had known that Natasha hadn't meant any of her threats, had just been frustrated and on edge still, scared because she hadn't been able to warn him or then come to rescue him. She had also been quite pissed at him because after that nightmare that Odessa had been (her first solo mission for Shield after which Clint had been ready to skin Fury), she had thought them to have come clean about any secrets there could have been about their past. Clint remembered that moment with fondness still, her laying in that hospital bed in Kiev and him waiting for her to come up with an explanation of what had happened at that cliff.

She had hesitated, clearly been uncomfortable with the topic and he had dared and asked her if it had been a Red Room operative, to which she had answered with yes and no.  
“She knew him, she told you that already, right?”, Steve nodded in response to his question, “After Odessa, when I was waiting with her in the hospital for extraction, she made me force her to tell what had happened, she didn't want me to think her to be making up stories. Took a while, but then she told me about the Soldier, fully expecting me to start laughing. Shield didn't believe in him, most said he was a ghost story, our community's own lullaby story.”, Clint chuckled, “You should have seen her face when I started gushing about the Winter Soldier, I think she thought I had gone insane.”

Steve smiled into his beer bottle when Clint was done again, and somehow he got the feeling that this was good for both of them, opening up, sharing stories, and maybe it even helped Steve getting more comfortable with the knowledge of what his old friend had now become. Because none of them knew how Bucky would return to them.  
“Did you know...”, Steve started then and stopped for a moment to laugh, “Oh that reminded me of Sam meeting Tony for the first time, did I tell you about that?”, Clint shook his head but already grinned, stories with Sam were usually prone to be hilarious.

\--

“I think Hydra wanted to recruit me, back before I even knew Shield existed.”, Clint said as after they had finished watching the game and gone on to watch some trashy sitcom that Steve had on his list for whatever reason Clint couldn't think of, “Of course back then I didn't know it was them. But someone kept on following me, kept a list of things I had done, and even teenage me realized at some point that meeting the Winter Soldier so often was not really random anymore.”, granted teenage him had felt strangely turned out and appreciated by it, gloating in the fact that someone did apparently want him.

“You never got any idea who tried to recruit you?”, Steve asked in honest curiosity and Clint snorted, putting his third empty bottle down.  
“Steve, you have to understand how many organizations are out there, legal ones and illegal ones. Ones you heard about already, many more you will probably never hear about. And everyone believed Hydra to be dead. No, I didn't have a single guess on who it could have been, just that it wasn't a crowd I wanted anything to do with, the vibes were quite easy to read. So I did the one thing I had left, when they got too close for comfort.”, he said and smiled.

“Shield?”, Steve took a lucky guess, looking honestly curious.  
“No, that came later. I joined the army.”, Steve choked on his beer and Clint rushed to pat his back as the blond started coughing violently, sitting up and leaning forward to get air into his lungs.  
“What?”, he spluttered and raised wide blue eyes to stare at him, Clint gaped right back.  
“I thought you read my file.”, he accused half offended, half surprised, he liked his file, it was the best entertaining novel he had ever read.

“Have you seen your file? I skimmed through it and it still took me longer than Natasha's or Tony's.”, Steve snapped right back at him and made a size gesture with his fingers that was a little too dramatic for Clint's taste, but then again, he hadn't seen the thing since a couple of years ago and Steve might have been right after all.  
“You really didn't know?”, he asked instead and Steve shook his head.

“That you were in the army? No, I didn't. What didn't you do before you turned 20?”, and Clint honestly had to think a little too long about that question.  
“Drugs?”, which came out as a totally not convinced question because Clint couldn't be entirely sure of what he had been pumped full off the couple of times he had been kidnapped.  
"Clint!", Steve's outburst was expected, but Clint could only try and smile through it as innocent as possible, he knew he had had it rough, and he usually preferred people to read his file instead of him doing the spill it all.

But Steve looked ready to call Natasha or worse Laura, and that was just not acceptable, he was a grown up man for fuck's sake, so he took a deep breath and then talked, "Okay, here is the short version: Ran away from home with my brother when I was six, joined the circus when I was seven, got betrayed by my brother when I was thirteen, ran away from the circus when i was fourteen. Became a mercenary at 14, became an assassin at 15. Joined the army at 18. Got betrayed by them and nearly killed by my brother at 20 and then joined Shield when I was 21."

And Steve gaped and was silent.

\--  
“She was furious, you know?”, the sun had almost disappeared behind the treetops when Steve had his bearings back enough to speak up again, “When Fury couldn't tell her where you were, I had to hold her back, otherwise she would have easily made that second death final for him.”, Clint couldn't help himself and snorted, he couldn't say Fury hadn't deserved it.

“Fury didn't know where I was, no one beside Pierce did.”, he clarified nevertheless, from the corner of his eye he saw how Steve raised his eyebrows, “I don't think even the other WSC members had an idea. He let me make his dirty work, and I followed orders. They had made their decision quite understandable, work myself back into their good graces or face the end of a gun.”  
“We wouldn't have let that happen.”, Steve protested immediately and Clint nodded.

“Hence the reason I kept it secret.”, he quipped, easy going about it now, nothing to fear anymore, not from Pierce, not from the WSC, “I didn't want to die, Cap, I had a wife and kids, but I needed to work through the guilt somehow.”, and Steve could understand that.  
“So, where were you?”, he asked instead and stretched to reach for the package of Oreos that Natasha had been so kind to leave for them.

“Czechenia when the whole thing on the Lemurian Star happened, and then in deep shit Africa when everything here got blown up. I got captured the day Nat and you found Zola.”, oh sweet memories of eating dirt and wet dirty caves.  
“Nat wasn't doing well when she found out that her hands were bound when everything was done, that there was no way to reach you. I could see that she was scared.”, Steve explained and Clint could only nod once more, he had been scared as well, scared and confused.

“You know what she did with my data file?”, and the girls' records, but Steve didn't need to know about that yet, swallowing down a cookie, Steve nodded himself.  
“Deleted it, yeah, she told me when she visited me in the hospital. She was out of it with fear. Said she couldn't let it leak with you being so deep undercover, and now where we know about Laura, it's all making more sense.”, Clint hesitated, thought about telling him that Laura hadn't been the only one she was scared for, that he hadn't been the only one shit deep undercover, but it felt too good right now to pull up darker topics again, and Steve knew about the girls.

“Laura put her together again.”, he said instead, smiling proud and fond, she really was the best and so much stronger than all of them together.  
“How did you get out of Africa? I never got to ask, just remember you standing in front of me again when I went to Tony to call in a favor before I hit the road with Sam.”, and hadn't that been one of the best faces Steve had ever had in front of him.

“Well, you said it yourself. Stark. Turned up on that shag of a cabin out of fucking nowhere.”, repulsors nearly blinding him after days in that light-less pit of a hole.  
"Not a fan?", Steve chuckled and Clint gave him the stink eye, snatching the Oreos away on purpose, Steve took revenge in kicking the darts off the table.

"Iron Man carrying me out of a burning wooden shag in the African desert bridal style while telling me that Shield was in truth Hydra? No, not a fan, Cap.", so not a fan, actually really really low on his list of favourite free time activities.  
"Tony will be hurt.", Steve sing-songed and actually pouted and Clint was hit for the first time with the question of when Stark had become Tony, he had missed that development completely and could kick himself now, definitely something to pick up with Natasha tomorrow.

"Shut the fuck up, man.", he wailed and kicked a foot out, catching Steve in the shin but probably not even leaving so much as a distant bruise, fucking serum.  
"I missed this.", Steve groaned in delight and flopped back onto the couch, Clint raised both eyebrows up into his hair.  
"What? Being insulted? You're weird, Steve.", he declared and Steve snorted, looking up at him from where he rested on head on the armrest of the couch.  
"No, someone talking back at me and calling me out on my shit. Without sounding like a total asshole. Tony does it to make himself feel better, you do it to make me feel better. It reminds me of...", and Clint interrupted him right there.

"Don't say it.", he begged and ordered quickly, looking away and down at his beer, trying to push the feelings away, because if not he would think about Phil, about the girls and everything else he had lost, and he couldn't deal with that right now.  
"It...", Steve furrowed his brows and pushed himself up on his elbows again, looking worried all of a sudden and Clint hated his emotions.

"Don't, Cap, please don't. We can talk about the Winter Soldier all day long, but we're not talking about Bucky Barnes.", it was almost too much already to speak his name, but Steve caught onto it, and as the pro he was in helping people work through things without actually making them work through stuff, he grunted and let himself fall back onto his back again.

"You should make a list for me. You're touchy on so many subjects, it's hard to keep track.", he spoke sullenly and sounded so much like Stark that Clint started laughing, full warm belly laugh.  
"God, I can't believe I am saying this, but thank all the gods there are except Loki for Steve Rogers not being a goodie two shoe like the media presents him. Finally, you are showing who you truly are.", and especially he finally showed who he truly was to Clint, and he couldn't help but ask himself if that meant Steve finally trusted him unconditionally.

"If you're telling the kids, I'm going to shoot you back to Africa."

\--

It was closing in on midnight when they reached the serious and painful topics after all, and Clint couldn't help but wonder if Natasha had advised Steve to get him drunk before bringing up Bucky Barnes and Strike Team Alpha. It sure helped in not having him run for the hills when it was time, and Steve was really tricky and cunning suddenly, easing himself into the whole dilemma with a completely different topic.

“What did you think about that rank list I gave you some days ago? For the new order of the Avengers Iniative?”, because that was their name now, because Clint was a five year old and had put that point of not calling it Shield down on his conditions-to-come-back list. In his slightly buzzed head, he had to take a moment to remember the long list of titles, ranks and clearance levels that Steve had wrote for him to look over, the Avengers clearly on top of the pyramid now.

“Course I do.”, he said then when his mind caught up with his puzzlement from back then, “Mostly because I wasn't on it.”, he could clearly remember the list now, Steve on top, Maria, Natasha, Bruce and Tony right below him, the new Avengers, Maria's protege Sammy Radcliff and Thor listed then. And Clint nowhere to be seen, so if he looked a little insulted now, no one could really blame him, and Steve clearly didn't, for he simply pushed himself to his feet and walked over to turn off the TV and turn on the music instead.

Soft jazz, good taste.

“That's because I wanted to talk to you about that instead of simply slapping a finished list into your face.”, and now he was positively intrigued, looking up at Steve with a demanding eyebrow raised while the supersoldier simply grinned like an idiot and kept on standing in front of the TV, and standing made things official, Clint put down the bag of chips they had raided from the cupboard, “What would you say about a level 10 clearance?”, and that had not been what Clint had been expecting.

“What?”, his reaction came out as eloquent as always, total brain freeze, “What did you just say?”, Steve chuckled and walked up the stairs to the small kitchen area that gave the team a chance to eat away from the loud and hectic doings of the cafeteria.  
“Figured Natasha would be right in guessing your reaction.”, Clint scowled, “It's fairly easy to be honest. I don't want to be the only one making the big decisions, and I spend a lot of time thinking about it. My first choice was Natasha, but she said no, said she was honored but couldn't take it, didn't give me an exact reason.”

“To have leaway for stupid actions during missions, to have a way out when she needs one.”, Clint did the explaining for her, Steve smiled and leaned back against the kitchen counter, had probably thought as much himself.  
“She was also the one who proposed an alternative. Maria and you.”, Clint stared, that was definitely way more than he had expected, “And though I trust Maria, I don't trust her like I trust you.”, and blue eyes stared right back at him while Clint was trying not to pass out.

I don't trust her like I trust you.

Well damn, and if that wasn't an ego boost of a whole new dimension. Captain America telling you he trusts you. Trusts you enough to want you as his co-leader. Clint tried to remind himself what breathing was.  
“Clint? Are you still with me?”, Steve asked with a concerned frown when the second minute of silence got stretched between them, and Clint found his inner Laura kicking his balls.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm here. But...why, Cap?”, and the nickname felt right, felt damn right, because this wasn't a matter he had to discuss with Steve anymore, this was all official and so damn important and why did he suddenly want all of this so much, he had always been content to be just one fish in the damn ocean, albeit a special one, but still just a fucking fish. And then you nearly got eaten by an invisible shark, his brain provided with the smug voice of his wife, and that special fish now wants to become a whale to keep that from ever happening again. 

“Because I know you could take it, the responsibility, the stress, the difficulties. And you're not shy of speaking your mind, you are smart and you are fair, and you put your foot down if you want something or if you see something not going right. And most of all, you're not hesitating in calling me out on my bullshit, never were, and I need that. I need someone around to tell me if I am doing something wrong.”, halfway stuck between speechless and falling to his knees in endless gratitude, Clint bit his lips to keep from stupid babbling.

“And before you start, I don't care what you did, where you come from or what other reasons you can come up with right now to not take this. You earned this, deserve it, maybe even more than Natasha. People respect you here, people fear you even, and we can't always deal with situations with only Captain America the good cop around...You learned from Phil, Clint, Phil and Fury, so you learned from the best, but you experienced enough and saw enough to not make the mistakes they did. I don't think there is a better choice.”

“Okay, first of all.”, Clint started when he found his voice and brain again, “Stop it there or Natasha will kill you for boosting my ego too much, she doesn't like it when that happens.”, Steve smiled, seemingly relieved over him joking despite the serious matter, “And then second, thank you. It...it means a fucking lot, a huge damn much to me to know that you trust me this much. And you have to know that it goes both ways, but I think I have to talk with Laura about this first.”, and Steve ducked his head and smiled sheepishly, and now Clint was gaping again, “You talked to my wife already?”

“I've talked to her a couple of times...even when you were still on the farm.”, Clint nearly lost his lower jaw, “Natasha told me to, said Laura has a certain way around her that just calms people and makes them realize how stupid they are.”, Clint transformed his gaping into a grin, that was his girl, “She was right. And I talked to Laura before making that list, asked her what she thought of it.”, Clint closed his eyes for a second, reminded as he was of the times that Phil had thrown all proper clearance levels into the wind and had asked Laura for advice on something mission related, “She told me to tell you that she wants you to take it.”

Waiting a moment until he looked up again to catch Steve's eyes and damn that guy was even biting his lip to give him time, it was enough to make Clint feel guilty over hesitating, “I'm in.”, Steve nearly slid down the sink with the nervousness that suddenly rolled off his shoulders and he grinned so bright, Clint just had to mirror it. He had no idea if this wouldn't end in a total crisis, but his life had taught him often enough that sometimes you needed to take a leap of faith to get somewhere better.

“Good, that's perfect, and I already have point one of our new agenda, and it's called missing people cases.”, damn him and his sneak attacks, where the fuck had he learned that suddenly. Clint winced and turned around so he was facing the TV again, sitting cross legged on the couch, “I want Bucky, you want the girls, and everyone is trying to stonewall us, but with us at the top of the freaking hierarchy, no one can stop us. Especially not if we turn the cards around and exchange files under the table.”, Steve chuckled and grabbed two cokes from the fridge, no need to get Clint even drunker now apparently.

„Are you proposing a deal, Cap?“, Clint asked and threw his head back so he could watch Steve roll his eyes as he retrieved the darts from the board on his way back from the fridge.  
“Are you playing dense now or are you really being slow? Yes, I am proposing a deal, Clint.”, putting extra emphasis on his real name, Steve dropped the darts back into his lap and held out a bottle before slumping back into the couch himself, “I want Bucky safe, you want to know what happened to your girls, which I want too by the way. Everyone is trying to keep us from getting there, but no one would probably keep Captain America from looking into a missing Strike team…”

“Or Hawkeye from sniffing around the world’s most wanted assassin.”, Clint agreed and then grinned when he caught sight of the halfway hidden smirk of the blond man next to him, “Jeez, you’re so cunning, Steve. I like it. Did Nat get under your skin?”, Steve rolled his eyes again and Clint almost squeaked in delight, blinding grin on his face while Steve calmly sipped on his coke for a moment.

“I think Nat simply pulled on some strings that have been there all along. Don’t look at me like that.”, but Clint couldn't help it and squeaked again, clapping his hands twice, grinning like a fool.  
“Oh, I’ll never stop looking at you like this ever again. I am redefining my Captain America image right now.”, Steve snorted and dropped his face into one hand but he still laughed when Clint bumped his elbow against his, “I’m your man.”

“Really?”, Steve wanted to know, raising his head again to look at him with serious eyes, and Clint nodded, sobering up himself.  
“Really. You need Sam off your case, I need Nat to stop snooping around my head. Let’s do this for each other. I’m pretty sure I can get some help from Wanda and Pietro if I need it.”, granted that the kid would wake up one of these days, and he wondered if he could get one more person on his case as well.

“Just keep in mind that...”, Steve started up hesitantly then and Clint interrupted him instantly.  
“That Bucky doesn't want to be found or taken in until he is ready, I can read, Steve. And I won't be going after Bucky, because none of us know if he even is Bucky right now. I will be going after the Winter Soldier, to make sure Hydra doesn't get there first, but we can talk details another day. What's your support? I think Sam will choke you if you say one more word about mission person cases to him, and you can rule out Natasha in this.”, the pain was too raw for her.

“I was thinking of asking Maria’s assistant for some favors.”, Steve surprised him once more and Clint slammed his head against the back of the couch when he started to laugh so hard that the force pulled him back, needing some seconds to get it together enough to speak, all while Steve stared at him with wide eyes.  
“Lots of fun and luck there, man, Radcliff bites just as bad as Hill, she just doesn’t bark in warning first.”, spoken in a well meant warning as someone who had tried to father the younger girl at some point and had gotten the message of 'don't need that' kicked into his ass quite vividly.

“Somehow I have the impression that for me, she would make an exception.”, spoken as he already ducked his head when his face turned red all the way to the beginning of his hairline.  
“Excuse me? Okay, now you gotta spill it all, Rogers.”, Clint demanded and threw a whole hand full of popcorn at Steve, when the supersoldier merely rolled onto his side and laughed into the pillows, face flushed in joy and embarassment.

\--

The knock on the door ripped him out of the silence in his head, the one space where he could let go for a change, where he could be just himself, where no one would judge or test him. His mind was safe, maybe the only safe place he had left in this world.  
“Come in.”, he called out and hurried to sit straight and strong, to pull up the facade of an unmovable rock, of a near invincible force. 

There was a reason why all talk about suitable candidates for a better leadership had completely stopped now that he was pulling the strings. He had been born for this, and everyone who dared to raise his voice against it would feel the consequences fast enough. The door opened and Brock Rumlow let his face work itself into the cold expressionless pokerface, the one he had already mastered before he had joined Shield all these years ago.

But once the man with the ear long brunet hair stepped into the room and then closed the door loudly again right away, Brock let his face relax as well. Jack Rollins was the one person left in this world he could trust, the only one he could let in. The one friend that remained after everything else had been betrayed and lost.

“You asked for me?”, Jack called out and moved over to sit at the chair in front of his desk, Brock needed a moment to work up the memory but then nodded.  
“How was Berlin?”, he asked, he had been surprised earlier that day when Jack's team had landed back on base, almost a week earlier than expected, he had already been making plans to do some solo mission to get away from all these annoying money shifters before he killed them all, god alone knew Jack was the only one capable of keeping him grounded these days.

Jack frowned and turned to narrow his eyes at the wall with the map of Europe, flagged with little red dots and Brock froze.  
“No.”, he said, but Jack gritted his teeth, mumbled something under his breath and then stood up again, plugging the red dot out of the German capital.  
“Yeah, unfortunately we were too late. I scraped up some men, brought them back here, they all say the same. No one saw anything or heard anything before the building blew up into their faces.”, Jack explained what he had been faced with, the same thing all over again, the same report that his last six missions had already been followed with.

Just a blown up Hydra base and a few survivors who never saw anything, Brock balled his hands into fists and glared hard at the files on his desk.  
“Brock?”, Jack began hesitantly when he was sitting down again, “Don't you think it's time we may play with the idea that he survived?”, and even that question was not entirely new, but no one but Jack dared to approach him with it.

The disappearance of the Winter Soldier, it haunted Brock's days as Hydra's new leader. And it haunted his nights with the feeling of a cold metal hand being wrapped around his throat.  
“He is dead, Jack. No one would have been able to survive that crash. Look at the state Rogers was in when they found him.”, Jack showed his unease with the answer, but he let it rest and Brock was thankful for it, still someone at least with a true loyalty that wasn't bought with the barrel of a gun.

He wasn't stupid or slow, he knew the Avengers were working on destroying Hydra from the top to the bottom and that work in Europe looked a lot like Barton's and Romanoff's finest work, and Barton had been off the grid for months already anyway. Hydra's asset though, he was dead.

“I'm going to Chicago.”, he declared after a moment of silence between them and Jack looked up with surprised eyes, their second biggest base in the states.  
“Do you want me to come with you?”, came the expected reply, but Brock shook his head, tried not to flinch at the open disappointment in green eyes, he knew Jack didn't always see it as a sign of trust when he send him on missions with his own team instead of being a member on Brock's team as it had been for so long.

But he couldn't risk it, the simple truth was that he couldn't risk it. It was only a matter of time until the Avengers found out that he was still alive and then he would be the hunted number one, and Jack's life meant too much to him. He couldn't risk his life, couldn't risk losing the one person that still made him hold onto his sanity, so he made another choice for him again.

“No, I need you to fly up to Alert. Get a good look around and then report back to me.”, Brock spoke up and waited until Jack caught his eyes to portray just how important this was, “Only me. You go alone, no one knows about this here until it's time.”, Jack nodded, understood the hidden meaning as always, it wasn't time yet to reveal their weapons.  
“All of their status?”, his friend wanted to know, but he shook his head.

“No, for now all I need is an update on Red.”, Brock explained and then turned back around to stare out of the window, letting the setting sun illuminate the vicious scar on his right cheek. Behind him, reflected in the window, Jack nodded and then turned to leave, only to stop in the doorway when Brock called his name again.

“If the work is completed, you bring her back with you.”, another nod and then Jack left, leaving Brock behind to continue staring at the distant sight of the Washington Monument, “We'll bring you home, Red, we'll bring you home.”, and then he would show them all what underestimating his powers really meant. A fire hadn't been able to kill him, so what would.

\--

Some days later

\--

“Stark? Come on, I know you're here.”, pulling off his jacket, Clint walked further down the corridor, he had been relieved to notice that his old access codes still allowed him to enter the tower from the landing pat and then descend down to the labs with the elevator. It was quiet, there was no music blasting through from the open door of the lab, no endless babbling of a billionaire as he worked and it somehow really set Clint's nerves on edge, “Let's do this the easy way, huh, because we both know I will find you anyway.”

“What do you want, Barton?”, a whole lifetime of experience and practice kept him from flinching when Tony Stark suddenly appeared in the doorway of his lab, pushing himself right into Clint's face as the archer had been about to enter. Surprised that the door was open anyway.  
“Need a favor.”, he snapped back from the shock within the blink of an eye and smirked at the other man, Tony raised an eyebrow but still stepped back and waved him inside.

“I'm all ears, Legolas.”, Tony declared and walked back to where he must have been fiddling with the holograms at his workbench, Clint let his eyes flicker around the clean lab on his way over to the old couch, waving with one hand at Dum-E when the bot chirped happily in greeting a familiar face, Butterfingers and You turned around as well in the background. Clint had spent not a small amount of time down in the lab in the weeks after New York and Africa, tried to get his head under control again while Tony whirled around him in his controlled chaos.

Clint flopped down on the couch and picked his phone out of his pocket, sliding it open to the list Natasha had sent him right after finishing it and then held it out for Dum-E to take.  
“Bring it over to him, won't you?”, Dum-E chirped and rolled over to Tony, placing the phone carefully on the table next to its creator, “My wife has a job for you.”, slowly turning around with one hand still raised, Tony looked at him with a deadpanned expression that didn't exactly cover up the surprise on his face.

“Your wife?”, he repeated dumbly and Clint couldn't blame him, next to the billionaire Dum-E pushed Clint's phone closer to him.  
“You know, brunet woman, quite heavy with child when you saw her, doesn't take anyone's shit. Always says exactly what you don't want, but need to hear.”, Clint grinned fondly and Tony snorted.  
“I remember Laura, you bird brain. Why does she have a job for me?”, Clint nudged his chin towards the phone that Dum-E still kept on pushing against Tony's hip, and the dark haired man finally wrenched down his hand to grab it, waving the bot off.

“What is this?”, he asked after a moment of reading through the points that 'I have on condition though' brought along.  
“A list of new conditions and rules that I have to fulfill to be allowed to continue my job.”, he stuck his tongue out when Tony raised both eyebrows at him, whatever he didn't choose to say still present in the way he pulled his lips into a smirk.

“Well, I'm your man. She is scary woman, wouldn't want to upset her.”, Clint laughed at the shudder that Tony showed before turning around again, “Jarvis, upload Barton's list into the server and pull it up in another window. Let's see what we got.”, while Tony spoke, Clint had frozen and mouthed the name of the AI that had been lost to himself, and then flinched heavily when a familiar voice floated through the room again.

“Just a second, Sir. And welcome back to New York, Agent Barton.”, too stunned to speak, Clint simply raised a hand to wave at the ceiling, his brain too busy trying to wrap itself around this news, to hear a voice that had a face associated to it now. A face of a certain full bodied AI who was not in New York City right now, Clint knew as much, there was a training exercise, Vision was back on base.

“Sir, Agent Barton looks in need of an explanation.”, Tony looked up in surprise from shifting the hologram windows around, and then threw a quick look over his shoulder to Clint's gobsmacked self.

“Vision's idea.”, were his first words, and when Clint's eyebrows only rose higher, he sighed and fully turned around again, “He came by, multiple times in the last months. Wanted to get to know me, wanted to connect the memories he has because of Jarvis to who I am now. Can't say it wasn't interesting, felt good to have him here sometimes. Was able to talk about some things, he put things into perspective.”

Clint knew he was gaping, and the slightly annoyed twitch on Tony's face showed him well that he wasn't being subtle about it, but he couldn't help himself. It was just too surprising to see Stark so open, so trusting, Ultron had truly pulled a number on him. He knew better to ask, let Tony have his secrets, let him have the choice to speak when he wanted to, Clint knew better than most what it meant to have the choice.

“So, you think you can do it?”, he changed the topic and waved a hand towards the hologram of his phone's list, Tony gladly turned around again. It wasn't as if Clint didn't have his opinion over what the return of Jarvis meant, he could come up with some pretty good guesses right on the spot, but if it helped and it clearly did, then who was he to judge. Instead he let his eyes roam around the lab in the few moments Tony took to check out each point on the list, and to especially let his eyes flicker over the appearance that the billionaire made in front of him.

Tony looked better than the last time he had seen him, months ago before they both left the base same days apart from each other. He looked awake, clean, no more troubled and wrecked with guilt, and Clint wondered how much contact Steve had really had with him, or if Vision had somehow managed to cleanse Tony's conscience of the destroying power of guilt over creating Ultron. But now there was nothing left of the paranoia, of the desperate need to prove his worth in brown eyes, Tony looked at peace almost, comfortable in his own skin again and Clint somehow felt another stone of responsibility lift from his shoulders.

They're a mess.  
Yeah, but I think they're my mess.

He smiled as the words from the conversation with Laura fell into his memory again and then got to his feet to cross the room over to the other side of the workbench, while Tony started to call orders and questions out to Jarvis. His interest got caught when his eyes picked out a wrinkled file sticking out from a bunch of towels at the corner of the table, and he used a quick hand to pull it out further, and then he gasped and made a jump back.  
“What the fuck, Stark!”, Clint yelled at and snapped his fingers until Tony looked over to him, spine straightening the second he saw him pointing to the file on the table, its old yellowed pages threatening to spill out.

But more eye catching and more important was the red skull with its six snakes, “Oh that.”, Tony commented drily and Clint raised an eyebrow, demanding answers, no one got to play around with Hydra. No one. Not after everything they had done. Tony must have sensed his bubbling anger and rolled his eyes, waving the holograms down to lean his hands upon the worktable, resting his weight against them to pin Clint with a challenging look.

“Who do you think I am? I didn't go snooping around, or blow up my own base in my free time. It was left on my doorstep. The file Hydra had on my father, I don't know what he thought he would achieve with it, but I still appreciate the gesture.”, Tony babbled merrily, making another note on the hologram to his right that told Clint to forewarn Laura about a soon to be visiting genius.

But when Tony's words caught up with his thought process he whipped his head down to the file again and his fingers twitched, “So he left you something as well. Interesting, I'm wondering when it's Natasha's turn.”, Tony snorted and then froze.  
“He found Steve? The base?”, the underlining worry and fear for their leader had Clint almost smirking but he kept himself in check, he didn't want to push Tony into the defenses again. 

“He left a note.”, he said and asked permission with his eyes to touch the file, Tony nodded, “Hung it on the fence, but breathe, Tony, despite his apparent change in loyalty, he is still the best assassin and spy this world has ever seen. The base is safe. We can't stick Barnes into the same category as Hydra or Hammer.”, the dark haired man seemed to take his words as comfort and Clint opened the file shifted through the information while Tony went back to whatever he had been doing.

\--

“Have you…talked to Steve about all of this already?”, Clint asked after some minutes of silence, thumb pressed upon the kill order on Howard Stark, speaking in a hesitant tone on purpose, he knew well how difficult it was to live in the shadow of a man who had ruined you for a normal life. Father issues were nothing unknown to Clint Barton, and he had always staid clear of those waters with Tony.

“Quit handling me with kid gloves, Barton and speak your mind.”, came the expected sarcastic and biting remark and Clint breathed out before specifying his confusing question.  
“Talked to him about your parent’s death and the involvement of…”, Tony laughed before he could have finished his sentence and Clint blinked.  
“The Winter Soldier?”, Tony chuckled and minimized the last hologram with a twist of his wrist, before shifting his entire attention to Clint and that was certainly something new.

“Huh…”, came the dumb response that Clint found himself quickly frowning over himself, while Tony seemed immensely amused.  
“Clint, I’m not stupid. I’m hotheaded and maybe a little…”, at which Clint raised his eyebrows again, “Okay quite overdramatic most of the time, but even I know that my parents weren’t killed by Bucky Barnes.”, spoken in the long suffering tone that Tony usually reserved for journalists, the 'of course I know that pigs can't fly' one.

“So, you’ll…”, and suddenly they were back to the old familiar cocky Iron Man who knew exactly who he was and who knew nothing better than to play with people by interrupting their sentences, knew their intentions, could read them, something Clint hated, and Tony knew that.  
“Help you in finding Barnes, because that's your agenda now, right? No, I won’t help you, but hear me out here. I can’t help you. Barnes, I don’t know where he is hiding, not in a part of this world where I have contacts, let alone where I can be seen without causing a scene. That is your place, and Romanoff’s.”

Clint sighed and leaned elbows first against the workbench, dropping his face into his hands, he knew Tony was right, realized the stupidity of his idea in this moment right there. He had known better than to ask Natasha for help, she had to work with her own issues concerning the Winter Soldier first, and even though Wanda had offered, Clint hadn't dared let her come along on this journey just yet, not while Pietro was still not awake.

“My talent is not stealth.”, Tony continued before Clint could have thumped his head against the metal surface, “Doesn’t mean though that I won’t do everything I can to assure that Barnes gets all the help he can get once you brought him in.”  
“I need to catch him first.”  
“He is not an animal.”, and just for a second Tony sounded so much like Steve that they both stared at each other for a moment before shaking their heads and moving on, Clint still saved it at the back of his mind.

“I know that. He’s just making it real hard to figure him out. What does he want? Why go to so much trouble to leave a note on our front step and this for you here at the tower.”, Clint spoke up and dragged a hand through his hair, pointing towards the yellowed pages of the old file about Howard Stark.  
“Maybe he is trying to figure out who he is, without anyone telling him what to do for once. As far as we know Hydra still thinks he is dead, which is good for him and good for us. He told Steve he will come when he is ready, so he must remember something now. Something beyond missions.”, Tony supplied and Clint dragged a hand through his hair.

“I thought you didn’t want to help me.”, he still smirked up like the good old annoying bastard Tony had found great pleasure in bickering with, they got along, Clint was happy to see that it was still the case.  
“I’m not, I’m just sorting your thoughts for you.”, Tony sniped back and turned to walk around Dum-E, shifting some metal plates on the table to make some room for his tablet. Clint watched him, his calm movements, his uncrazed gestures, the peace that seem to surround him.

Maybe he was high.

“You’re creeping me out with your calm. Are you going to help Natasha search Banner?”, he hated himself for breaking the cool standoff first, but he didn't like it when what he saw didn't add up with what he expected to see, but right when he was really ready to start searching for weed, Tony cracked upon the mention of his missing friend's name. Thank the heavens for sanity.

“Oh no.”, Tony wheeled back, going so far as to step away from the table and raising his hands, clearly not as calm as before, seemed Banner was itching him just as much as Steve and Clint did with their own cases, “No, not that I don’t appreciate Romanoff’s ongoing concern for Bruce’s safety, even though he can probably look better after himself than any of us, but Bruce will come back when he stops feeling guilty. We can’t force him to return, just as much as we can’t force Barnes to turn himself into our help.”, there was no mention of Shield's former Strike team, intentionally not, because for them there had been no free choice in their disappearance.

“So, what are you going to do then? Tower looks shinier than ever, two new suits.”, Clint pointed to a corner in the workshop, “You upgraded the Iron Legion to be even better, at least as much as I can tell. What is next for Tony Stark?”, Clint dared to poke a little deeper.  
“Self finding?”, Tony offered and Clint snorted so loud that it echoed from the walls.

“Oh please.”, he laughed, “Your self finding process stopped the moment you stepped in front of three dozen reporters and revealed yourself as Iron Man.”, Clint had been left gaping at the TV screen back then, while Natasha had thrown herself over backwards almost in laughter.  
“And Iron Man can’t have a crisis? Because I am quite sure Ultron…”, and yes, right in the bulls-eye again, Hawkeye, you still got it, one shot, one hit.

“You know that’s funny. For weeks I sulk in this tower, and for weeks it’s you who told me to get off my ass and stop blaming myself for something that got out of control. Fix what you can fix and then move on, remember who said that to me?”, which was said maybe a little too harsh, but they both appreciated brutal honesty more than any soft cuddling, Clint knew how to treat Tony, because it was exactly like he wanted to be treated himself. They had both seen too much shit in this world already, there was no beating around the bush, the world was fucked up, so don't paint it in white.

“Stop being such a wise ass.”, Tony cut out and turned his back on him, but there was already a smile tugging on his lips, he could see Clint's methods, Clint snorted again.  
“Then stop pretending you’re retired.”, he wanted clarified and stroke a hand over Dum-E's arm as the bot rolled past him.

“I am.”, Tony emphasized and Clint wondered how many times he could still snort before his nose protested, because seriously, who was he fooling here.  
“No, you’re not. You’re building new suits, you rebuilt the tower. You’re fiddling around with gadgets.”, Clint was too fast for Tony to stop as he lifted some blankets, “Hah, I knew it.”, he eagerly let the smugness color his voice as he held up the set of knives, Tony standing at his right elbow.

“I’m a creator, I need to built stuff to not get crazy.”, so there probably was a whole sub level full of new gadgets and what not, Clint guessed, putting down the knives again.  
“Hey, you don’t need to justify it with me. I stepped out just like you did, for some thinking, convinced this was it, I wouldn’t come back.”, he reminded Tony of the quiet conversations they had shared in the days before Tony had left for Manhattan again, “And yet here I am.”

“Yeah, how did that happen?”, Tony wanted to know and strode back over to his tablet.  
“Women in my life washed my head, quite effective.”, and not for the freaking first time, he had sworn not to let it become a habit, “Now come on, Stark, admit it, you’ve been thinking about it.”  
“I’m not ready yet.”, the reply came as if shot by a gun, and Clint smiled, content with the answer to a question he hadn't even asked but meant.

“Wasn't planning on forcing you to come back right away. Just wanna make sure you know there is a choice here. And until you are ready to come back into the team, there is another thing you could do for me.”, he hadn't been intending to talk to Tony about coming back, there was no need to push it, Tony had a choice to make, and he had to make it alone, but for Clint there was no doubt that in given time, Tony Stark would return to their mess of a family.

“What might that be?”, Tony glanced at him, a little wary maybe, Clint had never really approached him with easy favors and this one was maybe not easy as well.  
“Be there for a friend. Because Steve really needs someone right now. He needs you, not Natasha, not Sam, not me. He needs Tony Stark to annoy the hell out of him, to be distracting and talking without stopping about things he doesn't understand. He needs his friend.”

They fell into silence again, in which Tony dabbled away on his tablet and Clint picked up one of the knives, twisting it easily between his fingers and admiring the way it glided smoothly. Light and quick. Natasha would be green with envy later.

“He writes mails, you know. Twice...sometimes even three times a week, tells me about the team, about the base, complains about the staff.”, Tony started speaking again without looking up from his tablet, Clint smirked and didn't hide this time, winking at Dum-E and putting the knife down again.  
“You answer them?”, he asked and walked back to the couch.

“Not always. Mostly only when he needs something, new tech, software update, a hint on how to find something on his computer.”, oh this was definitely good gossip, but it also worked perfectly into his cards, two birds with one stone, hell Barton, you're on fire this week.  
“Call him. Talk to him, it might help more than just one person.”, Clint proposed and then smiled when Tony merely kept staring at the tablet in his hand, obviously lost in thought. Picking up his jacket, Clint shrugged it on again and calmly walked towards the door of the lab, only turning around again when he was already standing in the open door.

“Hey, Tony?”, Clint called out and Tony didn't turn around, just hummed a quiet “Hm?” while pulling up new holograms around himself.  
“If Barnes leaves you something again, will you tell me?”, and that gave himself a quick look from brown eyes.  
“Right away.”, Tony promised and they nodded at each other again in understanding.

“And keep in touch.”, he ordered and pointed a finger at the tablet and the ceiling, Tony rolled his eyes, but still nodded.  
“Will do.”, sending a mocking salute back at the scientist, Clint ventured into the corridor and then back up to the roof to get to the Quinjet, but not before he stopped at the last door before the landing pad and thought for a moment before opening his mouth.

“Jarvis?”

“Yes, Agent Barton?”, came the quick response of the AI and Clint could still not believe how good this familiar feeling was, something that hadn't been lost. He didn't know how new the AI, what Vision had helped integrate, what Tony had included to prevent another violent take down, but it was good to have him back.  
“You still have a way of contacting us, right? Steve, Natasha, Rhodey, me?”, he wanted to know and Jarvis was even quicker in answering in the affirmative, “Can you promise me to call any of us if he...slips up again? If he needs someone, we're only one call away.”

“I promise, Agent Barton.”

\--

Clint was on his way back to the base, taking a detour just to enjoy the feeling of flying and freedom for a little bit longer out on the ocean, when Steve thumped his head against the surface of his desk and whimpered quietly as the finished pile of paperwork slid to the ground and made a big mess.

Taking a deep breath, the Avengers' leader pushed both his hands up to cover his face and pressed his knuckles into his eye sockets. He hated paperwork. And he hated Hill for taking a week of vacation that he had pushed her to take despite not everything yet running smoothly on the new base. 

His phone started ringing and he picked up the call without looking, finger pressing the speaker button as he slumped back onto the desk. He needed a secretary or something. There had never been so much paperwork in the war, had there? Peggy would have not have hidden that from him, would she? She would have enjoyed the torture on his face, would have invented more files to fill out just to mess with him.

And Bucky would have laughed his ass off...

“Hey, Capsicle, it's somehow the common rule nowadays that people speak when they are being called.”, a snarky voice pulled him out of his thoughts and Steve snapped open one eye to look at his phone, familiar name blinking on the display, “Rogers, you there?”  
“Tony?”, his voice must have portrayed perfectly how shocked and surprised he was, because Tony snorted, and Steve sat up and leaned back against his chair.

“Yes, Tony Stark, still remember me?”, lips curling upwards with the familiar snark reaching his ears, Steve felt himself starting to relax.  
“It's been two months, Tony, I think it would take longer for one to forget Tony Stark.”, he cut back easily and earned himself a snort.  
“Ouch, but fair...Listen, Cap, I got a birdie here today and he made me aware of some things. I'm not good with comfort or emotions, you know that, but I'm good with talking, and sometimes I even listen.”, Steve groaned, cursing Clint on the inside, damn responsible and well meaning friends.

“Clint told you about Bucky.”, he said, sparing them both the road of denial, Tony knew him too well already, it was no use and truthfully, Steve was too tired for it anyway.  
“He didn't need to, I had my own present.”, Tony surprised him though, sounding awake, but as calm as he ever could sound, no hysterical undertone anymore, Steve furrowed his brows, “Barnes left me a file Hydra had on my father, even with a note saying he remembered and he was sorry. Your boy has atrocious handwriting, Captain oh Captain.”, his mouth took over despite his brain still freezing upon Tony's words, Bucky had been to the tower. He had left something for Tony, he had apologized...

“No one in the war cared for beautiful calligraphy arts.”, he heard himself speaking without really knowing where it came from, Tony chuckled.  
“Yeah, probably not. You busy?”, Steve eyed the mess of paper on the floor and then grabbed the phone, disabled the speaker option and stepped out on the small balcony outside his office.  
“Nope.”, he answered and felt the evening sun on his face.

“Great, there are some things I wanna talk to you about. Starting with asking how Barton got the rights to find your missing sniper. Wait, no, now where I say it out loud, it's making sense. One messed up sniper send to find the other.”, rolling his eyes about the joke Tony seemed to find amusing, Steve let his eyes wander over the edge of the forest, as always hoping stupidly to find a familiar face looking back.

“I didn't send Clint to find Bucky.”, he explained nonetheless, no longer finding the dread of disappointment in the pit of his stomach, not since Bucky had left the note, “I send him to find the Winter Soldier, none of us have as much experience with him as Clint.”  
“Okay, now I am intrigued, tell me all, Cap.”, he could almost picture it, Tony would have rubbed his hands in glee over getting some gossip and would have sat down on the couch, either in his lab or the penthouse.

Finding himself smiling despite the late hours and the ongoing frustration in his bones, Steve leaned back against the windows and looked out over the forest as he started to talk.  
“Seems like our Hawk is harboring quite an impressive boy crush on the Winter Soldier since being a teenager.”, Steve grinned when Tony started spluttering and demanding more.

\--

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it!  
> Any questions? Write a comment or leave me a message on tumblr! http://aceofhearts.tumblr.com/
> 
> Part 2 will follow in a few days!


	7. Wake up, I need help

The following takes place a couple of days after the phone call between Tony and Steve

\--

“...and never the least, we let Sam and Rhodey take the view from above, let them be our eyes.”, Clint proposed with one hand pointed towards the hologram and one hand still holding the surveillance photos they had actually printed out on paper, because old school was good school. Old school meant no one was able to hack into their information and destroy what little intel they had.

Steve hummed in a sign that he had heard him but still frowned at the attack plan on the building map the hologram showed, Clint raised an eyebrow. This wasn't the first time they were making plans together, Steve had already wanted his input before Sokovia, had said that he was so used to the view of a sniper towards everything that it was hard to make plans without it now, so Clint had filled the gap that Bucky had left all those years ago.

But now, he was no longer only the sniper of the team who saw everything just that little bit different, he was also co-leader, and that meant his opinion ranked on equal grounds with Captain America's. It meant his decisions were followed with a responsibility that they worked out. It meant that Rhodey of all people had started calling them Generals Rogers and Barton, and was driving them crazy.

“They'll be able to interfere quickly if we need them, but I feel better being on the ground in this. This is Wanda's first big mission with us, Steve. The first time she comes out with us when there isn't some abandoned shag to be raided, there are people here.”, he emphasized and wooshed his hand through the hologram picture of the building built on top of the energy compact of the dam in Missouri, “And I bet you they are not all scientists and company workers, because those...”, and he stopped a moment until he had shifted through the pictures in his other hand, flipping the one with the truck unloading towards Steve, who caught it easily, “Those don't hold semi automatic guns. Nor do they wear combat gear with the skull of Hydra on them.”, he said and turned on the spot to prod a finger upon the small but definitely clear image of the Hydra goons standing guard around the truck.

“And none of them are called Alexander Sanders and Philip Donalds.”, he ended his little rant with a sneer and the strong urge to spit on the printed picture that he was just able to hold back.  
“Strike agents?”, Steve suspected correctly, but Clint snorted and walked over to his desk to set the stack of pictures down, he had memorized them by now anyway.  
“Try to dig deeper, Cap. You know their faces.”, he offered and Steve looked back at the picture as Clint threw himself down in his chair, pulling his feet up to rest upon the desk, his office, his rules.

Steve's face darkened before he spoke and Clint knew he had it figured out, “Kappa, Rumlow's team.”, Clint clicked his tongue in affirmation, “The last two ones.”, to rod out, they both added in their heads, though Clint had his doubts about that still.  
“Much as I want to share Nat's and your optimism in this, I think it's time we throw in some rules of mine in handling these things.”, Steve raised an eyebrow at him, “Call it Hawkeye Life 101. I'll give you the rundown of the whole book at some later point, but here is the top three.”, Clint smirked and held up three fingers on one hand, using the other hand to tap against them.

“Number three: there is no such thing as 'it cannot get any worse', because then it definitely will get worse. Number two: when in doubt, pull the trigger first and ask questions later, and my favourite free time nightmare, rule number one: No one is dead until there is a body to prove it.”, Steve stared at him for a long moment and then sighed and reached up a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.  
“I don't know why I am asking, but why is that your favourite?”, Clint grinned, pushed his feet to the ground again and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his desk.

“Because of Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers. Because of Nick.”, he put the numbers down and Steve sighed again, but Clint quickly recognized it as the 'damn he is right' one, the one Steve had begrudgingly first used in his presence in relation to Tony. Good memories.  
“Fine, okay. Good. So we're supposed to pretend that Rumlow and what was his name...Rollins are still alive? That they survived a helicarrier literally crashing into them?”, it was funny somehow that Steve seemed in doubt about this but their faces were still hanging on the most wanted wall.

“Bucky.”, Clint offered as a first response and Steve groaned, seeing the logic as well, “No one thought that he could have survived, and look at him happily blowing up Hydra bases now.”, Steve narrowed his eyes at him for the merry wording, but Clint ignored him, “Fact is we found Pierce's body, we didn't find Jack or Rumlow, but someone else might have. Hydra might have. And I don't like the chances here. Rumlow and Jack were damn good agent, two of the best, best of the best to be honest, I don't many people who were better. They were ruthless and precise, and they were the best instructors and teachers Shield had for the Strike agents. And I don't want to know how much of that also went into training Hydra soldiers. So back to my original argument, yes, we need me on the ground for this, because if Wanda is overwhelmed and loses control, I'm the one who can talk her out it. We've seen that twice already.”

“Okay, good.”, Steve agreed and dragged both hands over his face, “I don't like it that this one is so heavily guarded for no apparent reason.”, he mumbled and scowled at the hologram again.  
“That's why we are going in, Cap.”, Clint smiled and waited until Steve nodded, before pressing the intercom button, “Avengers assemble.”

\--

As it had been the case so many times already for them, just when you thought that you had gained the upper hand and were done with the job with an easy flick of your wrist, everything turned to hell. It had looked to be a simple easy job once they had arrived, small Hydra base, nothing extraordinaire, prevent them from loading those stolen bombs onto their trucks and go home. Done deal. But nothing was ever simple anymore, not in the life of Clint Barton.

One second Clint was taking down the last standing soldier in the room and in the next moment fire exploded around him and the ground disappeared under his feet. He lept over the closest stay of ammunition boxes and allowed himself one short second of catching breath, before he drew another arrow and whirled around again to fire up to the men shooting at them from another story.

He caught sight of the shield flying back into Cap's hands not far from him, but whatever he was shouting got turned out by the overwhelming sound of the water turbines and the crashing waterfalls just behind them. At least until the small round device clinked to the ground only six feet from Clint's right foot, and for a short second time seemed to stand still as he looked up and found Cap staring at him with terror written all over his face and then the blast went off.

Clint went flying, hands grasping at everything in blind panic as the sound of the crashing water came closer and closer despite the loud ringing in his ears, despite the way his whole world had just exploded into pain, when his head got trashed against the shell of an unloaded bomb. When he finally got his hands around something to stop his flight, it was with horror that he realized it to be the railing that surrounded the gaping hole where the water turbines sent the water crashing into the endless depths of the dam.

His head pounding and his vision slimming, he grabbed again and again at the railing when his hands slipped, fighting to stay awake, he couldn't help the panic that seized his mind and body as his eyes glanced down into the fall he wouldn't survive. He had half a mind to frown over the way he would finally find his death. Of all the things, of all the events that could have happened to him, falling to your death had to be at least second on the list of meagerness.

But then as his head threatened to have him black out and his grip on the railing slipped for good, one strong hand got wrapped around his wrist.  
“I got you.”, Steve's voice was yelling down at him, and Clint blinked to get an image of him that wasn't blurry and unclear, but his eyes didn't cooperate and something warm trickled down his neck, “Clint, take my hand.”, something blue got waved not far from him, but Clint couldn't will his body to react, left arm hanging limp at his side, “Goddammit, Clint, take my hand.”, the grip on his wrist was so tight and steady, as if he weighed nothing.

“I can't...”, he heard himself croak out and then wince upon the stab of pain it sent through his skull, definitely a concussion there, Barton.  
“Yes, you can, now gimme your hand, soldier.”, with a sharp blink Cap's face snapped back into focus, and Clint grimaced upon the pain in Steve's eyes, “Take my hand, Clint. I'm not going to let you fall, fight! You're not going to be another Bucky.”

No, no, he wouldn't. He couldn't, too much to loose.

“Come on, fight. I got you, just gimme your hand and I will pull you over.”, he screamed, he had to be screaming as he forced his left arm up despite the blinding pain shooting through his entire body and then Cap latched onto his wrist and started pulling. Clint never felt himself getting over the railing though, he blacked out and went limp.

\--

Quiet. That was the first thought that reached his conscience, it was quiet, there was no sound around him, no ever annoying buzzing in his own head. Just simple silence, blessed peace. And if this was death, then there hadn't been much reason to fear it.

He was comfortable, warm and laying on something that felt much like a bed, his fingers twitched and he felt soft linens, moved his head to the side and felt the cushions adapt perfectly, felt how his body relaxed even more.

Silence and warmth and peace. So comfortable. It felt so safe and soothing. 

His mind and body felt controllable for once, no ever lasting presence of his sister's thoughts, and he spent a small amount of a second being confused over that, but got distracted by the overwhelming sense of peace again. No energy taking over for him, no force fighting with his mind to move, move, move.

He was just him. Just himself. Alone with this thoughts, alone with his body. At peace. 

And blue eyes blinked open as Pietro Maximoff awoke and instantly panicked when he caught sight of the medical supplies, the monitors and the cables. The IV line in his right hand, the oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, he smelt the disinfectant, saw the clinical cleanliness of everything.

No, no, no, no. They had gotten away, it wasn't a dream, they had gotten away. No more experiments, no more cells, no more pain, no more drugs. No more tests. They had found the real Shield. Avengers, Shield, the good guys. They had gotten out.

He never realized as the fear in him took over, as the panic made the energy burst a flame with a vengeance and a power that he couldn't even think to control, he never realized as he ripped the cables and masks of his body and then rushed to his feet so fast that he slammed into the closest wall, he never realized that he hadn't been constrained.

“Wanda!”

\--

“Clint? Clint! Come on Barton, don't leave me hanging here.”

A voice, familiar somehow, but sounding so distant and far away, but then also so close and clear. Everything in him felt cold and heavy, buried in ice, caged under mountains. 

Somewhere there was also the sound of water...or rain maybe...

He couldn't feel his body, just the coldness, just the weight pressing down on him, just the darkness closing in harder and harder.

“How is the status, Steve?”, another voice, sounding mechanic somehow, from within his ear maybe, but even more familiar. He was tired, he wanted silence, and the darkness was begging, was begging with peace and silence, with warmth and freedom.

“He is alive.”, came the first voice again but he couldn't care anymore, “I'm bringing him to the jet, he needs to get back to base. Quick.”

“Roger that. We're going back.”

And he let himself fall into the arms of darkness again.

\--

When they returned to the base, everything was in uproar and Maria looked as though she had just gone some rounds with the same soldiers they had when she came running out to meet them in the main corridor, Cap carrying an alarmingly paling Clint.

“What is going on?”, Natasha wanted to know, her eyes flickering between the hectically running around agents in the corridors and Maria busy typing away on her tablet. But it wasn't their well loved all around organising talent who answered them but a halfway suited up Tony jogging out of a side corridor.

“Too many things to explain right away. Speedy woke up, is tearing half the medical wing apart as we speak.”, Wanda gasped while Cap was still trying to work with Tony's sudden appearance, but he quickly nodded for the witch to run off. Wanda vanished in a swirl of red, Vision darting after her.

“And we found Bruce.”, Tony continued as if nothing had happened and Natasha snapped her head back up from where she had leaned down to check Clint's pulse again, “You okay with leaving Birdie in their hands? I think I could use some help in this.”, they shared a long look, Tony, Natasha and Steve, the unspoken meaning of Tony's words clear for him to hear, but then Natasha smiled, a truly devious smile, for what seemed like the first time in weeks.

She patted Clint's unconscious head one more time before looking up at Cap, “I got him, go.”, and Natasha nodded, “Get Banner home.”, Tony saluted and then they were off, Rhodey following when Tony had looked over his shoulder once, Sam staid behind.

“Let's get him to the medical ward, brief me on the way, Maria.”, as wished she started talking as they walked down the corridor Wanda had vanished down only moments earlier.  
“Maximoff woke up and panicked about the same time that we got a hit on Banner's location. He must have reactivated the tracking device of the Quinjet, seems like he is in some trouble. Your stunt with the blow up...”

“We didn't blow anything up.”

“It alerted the media, but we're on damage control.”, as they neared the medical ward, something heavy thumped to the ground, and someone yelled in Sokovian, Cap glanced over at Maria while she ushered him into a small sideroom, where Dr. Cho immediately took over once he had laid Clint down on a cot.

“He panicked. He is disorientated and doesn't have his powers under control. I would have called you back if you hadn't already been on your way back. I was hoping his sister or you might get him back under control.”, Cap nodded but when he looked down at where one of the nurses pushed an oxygen mask over Clint's mouth and nose, he couldn't help but wonder if he was truly the Avenger Pietro would need to calm down.  
“I'll see what I can do. Sam?”, Steve called out and noted with relief how Sam sank into the chair in the corner of the medical room.  
“I'll stay.”, he promised and Steve let Maria lead him away.

\--

Calming Pietro down enough to actually get him to listen to them speak and explain was harder than any war Cap had ever been part of, at least it felt like that once Pietro sunk down upon his bed again, his sister holding him against her side and Cap finally had the chance to slump into the next chair with actual sweat on his face.

His hands were vibrating still with the continued effort it had taken him to even get a grip on one of Pietro's limbs for even a second. The room was half destroyed, and even Vision looked a little put out for the moment.

“Well, that could have been worse.”, Wanda turned to look at him and raised an eyebrow, “Believe me. Just wait until Barton comes around, that'll be fun.”, it wasn't the right thing to say, because Pietro whipped back up to attention and Steve could have facepalmed, “So, where should I start with the explaining?”, he said instead and rolled his eyes when Wanda pressed a chuckle into the silver white hair of her confused brother, “Remember how you not-died?”

\--

Natasha returned to the base roughly two days later and after making sure Bruce was definitely comfortable with Tony prancing around his (their) new lab, showing off this and that, her first order of business was to look how her best friend and old partner was doing.

She found Clint still unconscious, considering the amount of injuries he had been dealt with again, she hadn't really expected anything else, she was more astonished though over the little crowd of visitors in the sterile medical ward room.

Cap was reading some documents in one corner, using a second chair as an improvised table, while Wanda was sitting on the counter behind him, reading in a book that Natasha suspected she had gotten from Maria. But somehow her eyes were most drawn to the pale and tired looking form of the older Maximoff twin sitting cross legged in a chair not far from Clint's bed, blanket wrapped around his shoulders, with his hands holding tightly onto the ends.

It was strange to see him awake but so still, his fingers were absentmindedly tapping a rhythm on the woolen fabric and his eyes were attentive as always, but other than that he looked so subdued that she might have almost been a little freaked out by it.

“Well, what an audience, Clint's ego will never recover from that boost.”, she quipped and Cap snorted, his eyes quickly flying up to meet hers from across the room, two seconds all he needed to see that she was in fact alright.  
“Somehow this is the only room I can get the peace in to work without someone barging through the door with even more paperwork.”, she grinned at his frustration, knowing very well that people seemed to avoid the medical ward when it was Agent Barton laying in one of those rooms.

She turned her eyes to the twins then, but Pietro was quick in turning his blue eyes away again, preferring to stare at Clint's steadily rising and falling chest, so Natasha looked at his sister, and green eyes were almost smiling.  
“It was calmer here than anywhere else. They discharged Pietro yesterday, said it would be better to recover and heal and rest in his own rooms, but no one seemed to leave us alone.”, Natasha sighed after Wanda had explained, annoying staff people who couldn't get a message of leave the newbies alone until they settled in.

Cap shared her small grimace as she reached for a free chair and sat down on Clint's other side, noting with a little relief that his eyes were not moving behind his lids, that he was resting peacefully for once, whether it was drug induced or not didn't matter now.  
“How is Banner?”, Cap wanted to know when she had settled, Wanda looked surprised for a moment that he would ask while they were present, but Natasha didn't care, she trusted both twins as much as she trusted the other Avengers.

Not as much as she trusted Clint, but she would never trust anyone as much as him.

And it wasn't as if Steve had asked anything personal.

“Okay, for the most parts. You should find him later and talk, once Tony is done with him, but I think the time alone did him some good.”, she answered and swung her legs up to rest upon the side of Clint's bed.  
“I'm gonna look what they are up to right now actually, I need to throw these at Maria anyway.”, Cap responded to her and got to his feet after collecting his papers. He pinned her with a look first, “And you rest.”, she stuck her tongue out at him, but Cap merely turned his eyes to the silver haired twin, “And you double rest.”, but Pietro didn't even glance his way to show that he had understood.

Natasha kept her face perfectly neutral but frowned on the inside, he seemed changed, subdued and much much too quiet. Cap turned to Wanda meanwhile, “And you make sure they do rest. With your powers if you have to.”, he turned to leave only after Wanda had nodded, which she only did after seeing Natasha roll her eyes behind Cap's back, “And someone call me when Barton wakes up. I have words for him.”

\--

Natasha staid at Clint's side and even napped for a while even after Wanda left to find Vision to “talk about some things”, though the assassin had her own suspicions over what those words were supposed to mean. But she was relieved and even glad that the girl had found somewhere she could share her thoughts with, it helped her in getting over what had happened and she couldn't want more.

They had talked before, already comfortable around each other after many training sessions and bonding moments. Natasha liked to talk to the Sokovian girl, they had more in common than what people would call obvious, and though she was independent and confident in who she was, it was always nice to talk to a woman once in a while.

Pietro though had staid silent, awake but quiet and unmoving almost on his chair, eyes glued to Clint's equally unmoving form as though it would give him answers to questions haunting his mind. Natasha didn't even try to force communication on him after his sister had left, she knew when to leave people alone with their thoughts, Clint was just the same, and that thought almost made her grin.

As she slept though, Pietro remained in his quiet observing role, but now blue eyes sometimes flickered over the relaxed form of the red haired assassin as well. His sister had told him that they could trust these people, and he had always relied on her decisions more concerning friends and foes.

Pulling the blanket higher as the ventilation system picked up again to cleanse the air as the Captain had told them, he pulled it higher around himself, almost letting it flap over his head like a hood. He felt drained of all energy, a feeling that was not only unfamiliar to him by now but also terrifying after he had spend so much time already used to his powers being able to get him out of all kinds of trouble.

Now though it took a lot of effort to even stay awake, sitting cross legged by the archer's bedside as he was, in a chair that was surprisingly comfortable, blanket pulled around him in a way than just warming act. It was like a shield, between him and a world he didn't understand yet.

Truth was, he hadn't expected to survive. He had fully expected to die. He had known what it would mean to throw himself in front of Barton and that child. It had meant Barton and the boy would live, and that he would have to pay the prize. But he had been willing, he had welcomed death almost, because in that short moment he had seen Barton alive and not bullet riddled, he had known that a good man would live on to save more people's life.

And he had known that he wouldn't die for nothing.

And then he had woken up.

Pietro sighed deeply, triple checking quickly if the other agent had been woken by it. Wanda had told him that he looked dead still, face pale and drawn, dark bags under his tired eyes, no smile on his lips, while his body took all energy for healing. He couldn't even feel the ever present buzzing in his veins, the never ending longing for speed in his limbs, and that terrified him more than anything else. 

It was as if a light had been switched off inside of him after that first loss of control after waking up.

The thought that healing, that surviving had maybe burned his powers away, it paralyzed him, and he was so far successful in keeping that thought from reaching his twin. Wanda was already worrying enough, she didn't have to know how not ready he really was. 

Two days back, two days back awake in the land of the living.

And he couldn't make sense of anything. And he was more than happy that the Captain had let him sit here at the currently fallen Avengers side to gather his thoughts and strength, here where no one was bothering him. It was strangely soothing, the second he had sat down at the unconscious archer's side, he had stopped twitching and choking on every breath, as if he felt protected in the presence of a man who was more than defenseless in his current state.

Too many questions, not enough people to give him answers.

\--

On the next morning, Pietro woke slowly, blinking at the hair falling into his face and groaning quietly when he pulled up a hand to sluggishly push it away, before catching sight of the white linens and frowning in confusion. He had a good memory of being discharged from the medical ward, so why....Oh, right. Pushing himself up to sit back in the chair, he cracked his neck a few times to let the muscles relax, and then he looked down at the still unconscious form of Clint Barton.

On which bed he had fallen asleep, still halfway sitting in the surprisingly comfortable chair.

His still halfway sleeping mind was quite stuck in the process of remembering how that could have happened again when a knock on the door helped in letting him snap to full awareness. Tony Stark stepped into the room after poking his head inside first, looking impeccable as ever in a black shirt, holding a tray with two cups of what Pietro suspected was coffee, because everyone on this base seemed to drink it in unhealthy insane amounts, even his sister had already been converted.

“Want one?”, Stark asked casually, kicked the door half shut again behind himself and walked over to stand on the other side of Barton's bed, smirking and grinning. Pietro was still not convinced what to make of him, unsure, hesitant, waiting for something to drop.  
“I don't drink coffee.”, he bit out slightly annoyed, but Stark either didn't seem to notice or didn't care, just shrugged his shoulders and picked up the first cup.  
“More for me then.”, he declared and then fell into a mindless babble that was apparently more for the sake of the unconscious archer than for Pietro, because he understood shit of it, instead slumped back into the chair and reached for his blanket again, watching Barton breathe.

He was a restless lump of unconsciousness in one second and in the next, Pietro had just looked up again and frowned at the unusual downcasted face of Tony Stark, and then he was jumping to his feet in shock as the archer awoke with a strangled choke of breath. Stark stopped his hesitant hovering and hurried over to the bed where Clint Barton struggled against the cables, IV lines and bandage coverings.

"Woah, Barton, slow down there.", but Clint was clearly disorientated and alarmed, continuing to push himself up against the pain that must have been there in his limbs, eyes wide, racing around the room, face contorted and grimacing in obvious pain. When Stark stopped by his side and pushed him back down, just as it would be better to rest the man's broken rips, "Come on, Barton, easy.", the only thing happening was the spiked alarm of the heart monitor as Clint panicked.

A nurse stumbled into the room, but recoiled quickly when she saw Stark struggling against a frantic and hyperventilating Barton, the assassin didn't have his reputation with the nurses from nothing Pietro supposed somewhere at the back of his mind that wasn't freaking out.  
"Find the Captain! And Romanoff! Now!", Tony barked and then hissed as Clint managed to twist his arm free, "Barton, for fuck's sake, you are safe! You're back on base, Clint.", it was obvious though that Barton saw only red and panic and danger.

Pietro saw himself finally moving when Clint growled and raised a hand to punch, considering that it was Stark in the line of fire it was not yet enough to have him move a muscle, but it was the archer's hand with the IV line and Pietro honestly had enough of blood for a while. His hand clamped down on Barton's free wrist and pushed it down upon the bed again, but in another thought he brought the twitching hand up to rest upon his heart on his chest and forced himself to be calm. It was the same gesture the Captain had used to finally snap him out of his post-waking up panic attack inducing loss of control over his powers.

The moment it all was lost.

But as he head hoped Barton snapped his head around and blue eyes came to a stop upon his face, their intensity making Pietro nervous enough immediately to stop biting his lips on order to keep quiet, “You didn't see that coming, hm, old man?”, he quipped and Barton froze, literally went dead still again, all muscles locking up, while a smirk crept upon the younger man's lips.

Stark let go and straightened up again, but kept himself in reaching distance, eyebrows raised, and dark eyes quickly flickering between them. Pietro's grin began to falter a little, when Clint's breathing calmed down again and his face turned into a frown. In the next second, Pietro squeaked as the hand on his chest crawled itself into his shirt and then whisked him down with more force than he had expected Barton to be capable of in the moment.

Letting go of the other's hand, his own hands quickly shot out to keep himself from face-planting onto the injured ex-agent, while Barton pulled him closer.  
“You goddammed bastard!”, he snarled into Pietro's face with a voice that sounded like sandpaper working on rocks, “Don't ever even think about doing a stupid stunt like that again! Never again!”, Pietro's sudden nervousness made him blurt out the first thing coming to his mind, it was obvious what Barton was talking about, but he couldn't help himself.

“What?”, he chuckled, blue eyes below him flickered dangerously, “No more throwing myself in front of a hail of bullets?”, he pouted and Barton flashed his teeth, it was fucking terrifying and every sane person would have shut up, “Where would the fun in life be then?”  
Barton growled again, louder this time and reached up with his other hand as well to pull Pietro's head down upon his shoulder, strong arms coming around his back to hold onto him. For a moment Pietro was so thrown that he tensed up completely, but then he caught the quiet whisper by his ear, silent enough that Tony Stark wouldn't be able to hear it.

“Thank you for saving my life. And for not dying, son.”

Pietro snorted and pulled away again when Barton let him, shyly and uncomfortably dusting off invisible flaws on his shirt when he saw Stark eying them with amusement.  
“You're welcome.”, he mumbled and shot a quick grin down at a now relaxed Clint Barton, just as quick steps sounded in the corridor and Natasha rounded into the room with flying hair, the Captain, his sister and the rest of their mismatched team directly behind them.

And suddenly the room was crowded with people and Pietro saw Clint blinking in confusion at everyone, “Does no one have a life here?”, Steve pushed himself past Natasha, clearly not amused and crossed both his arms over his chest as he came to stand next to Tony and right beside Clint's bed. For a small moment they just stared at each other, but then Steve uncurled his arms and braced them on either side of Clint's head, leaning down in the process, making Clint go cross-eyed to keep track of him.

“Don't ever fucking do that to me again.”, and his snarled order was met with one loud synchronized round of “Language!”

\--

“Okay, this is ridiculous.”, Clint was honestly really proud of himself that evening, really really damn proud of not snapping for at least ten minutes. But enough was enough, “Back off everyone!”, he snarled, sending a really dark look into the round that had at least Tony, Sam and Rhodey back off a with a jump to where Bruce had kept hovering in the background, only smart fool that he was. Steve and Natasha froze kind off ridiculously with one hand still outstretched towards him, both frowning and scowling, and both looking so horribly constipated in it that Clint had to really fight to keep his laughter in, knowing that his rips would only protest heavily.

He had discharged himself ten minutes ago and when Steve had protested, he had threatened some nurses and they had happily let him go with a sneer and a package of painkillers. And then everyone had popped up out of nowhere and had proceeded to play babysitter on his way back to his rooms.  
“We only mean well.”, Wanda piped up from his right, hovering right at Natasha's elbow, her brother glued to her back, and Clint smoothed his angry face into a gentle smile just for them.  
“I know, sweetheart, and it means a lot coming from you, but these...”, and he scowled again and pointed a finger at Sam for opening the next door for him, “These idiots have to go.”

“Clint, you...”, but he interrupted quickly whatever Steve had wanted to start, hell, even ranks felt too damn good, Steve had to shut up when he talked, perfect, totally not going to use that for all purposes and intents in the future, Barton, totally not.  
“I can walk, I can breathe, I don't wobble, my eyesight is clear. My headache is smaller than the one from last week when you slammed the shield against it.”, he let his voice sink dangerously low and Steve winced, and then finally took some steps back, “And the best thing is that I know that half of you at least have paperwork most overdue, and I want that on my desk first thing in the morning. And I'm not hesitating to send Maria after you.”, Sam and Rhodey disappeared immediately and Natasha send a small look over to him that colored him in many different traitor colors, and then she huffed and took off as well.

He would regret that at some point, he surely would, but damn power felt good, and sleep would feel so much better in a comfortable bed soon. When he was alone, finally alone and after he had called Laura.

“And you.”, he turned on both scientists in the background, Tony visibly flinched, and Clint couldn't help the smirk flickering upon his lips, maybe Phil had been right though, maybe power was not actually the best for him to play with, “Don't you have something to analyze? Fret over? There must have been something we brought back from that base, and if not someone better suit up and get something.”, one glare towards Steve, who rolled his eyes, but waved Tony and Bruce away with quick hands and even quicker steps.

So Clint was left with Wanda and Pietro, and immediately let his shoulders slump, tension draining from his body now where he could breathe again, he was definitely the worst kind of injured person ever. Crabby, frustrated, snappy. And tired, so so tired. 

“Do you want us to go as well?”, Pietro asked, careful and clearly hesitating and Clint wanted to ram his head into the wall, but Wanda grabbed his elbow when he swayed to the side in his try to turn right.  
“Like hell we're going to leave him like this.”, she pointed out and then snapped something to her brother in their native language that had the older twin walk over to Clint's right side with a sigh, slinging his arm around his shoulders and then dragging him forward when Wanda clicked her tongue.

“Yeah, no, you can stay.”, Clint answered way too late as both twins steered him towards him the elevator that would lead straight up to the corridors with their rooms. He got dropped onto the couch and then covered with a blanket by Wanda while Pietro got ordered to search for the phone, not really an easy task in the mess that Clint called order. The kid still managed to find it within a few minutes and then got pushed out of the room by his smiling sister, Clint wondered who was the more confused one in all of this, Pietro or him.

Nevertheless he groaned and basically melted into the pillows after Wanda had shut the door behind herself, and then groaned some more when his eyes fell upon the phone.

\--

His call home got picked up on the second ring, and Clint had the rising suspicion that Steve or Natasha must have messaged Laura to warn her he would call, because Laura greeted him with the biting order to sit his ass down if he wasn't already.  
“I missed you, too.”, he chuckled and immediately regretted it when his rips protested majorly, Laura sighed and in the background he could hear evening cartoons.

“You're okay, right? I've already promised Steve our next child so you better not die on me anytime soon, Clint.”, rolling his eyes, he stretched out on the couch and let his wife's comforting warm voice wash over him.  
“I'm fine, Laura. Honestly, back in my own rooms, need to sleep it off now, it's nothing serious, just some bruising, but I'll take it easy the next days.”

“Tell me what happened.”, she demanded next and Clint told her patiently about what had went wrong, about what he could remember before he blacked out and didn't leave out what he had been feeling, honesty, they had always worked with honesty. By the time he was done, Lila was prodding quietly for a chance to talk with him and Laura let him go after he promised to Skype call in a few days.

“Hey, pumpkin.”, he smiled against the phone as Lila happily greeted him, “How was your week, hm? Wanna tell your tired boring Dad what you did?”, she giggled and he could feel his heart settle even more. He had to admit though that he was maybe too tired for this phone call, when he spaced out for a moment while Lila raced through the happenings of the last week, "...and then Uncle Tony fixed the dishwater, you know the one that had been broken forever. It took him like five seconds and Mummy said she would never let him go again.", he smiled and chuckled, only to snap open his eyes a second later and stare at the ceiling.

"Wait, what? Uncle Tony?", blinking quickly three times, he sat up again, dragged a hand over his face, debating whether or not he had started dreaming, painkillers always did him in, when Lila giggled some more and continued.  
"Yes, Uncle Tony, and he says he will have the tractor fixed the next time he comes. Says you should show Cooper how to drive it.", some more giggles while Clint tried to remember how to speak.

He knew Tony had been around the farm to install what Laura had asked of, that wasn't what was driving him up against the wall here.  
"Woah, woah, woah, Lila. Hold up there a second. Uncle Tony??", and how could his sweet little angel not get the sarcasm in his voice, come on, baby girl, you know your Dad.  
"Yesss...”, Lila spoke slowly, making it sound like she was explaining Hello Kitty to Nick all over again, in that soothing and calm reassuring voice to make sure that no, you are not lost yet, I can update you on this vital piece of information you have missed, “You know him, Dad. Tony..Iron Man....", and okay sarcasm was not the problem here, Clint concluded and huffed, change of strategy then.

"Where is your brother, gimme your brother, Lila.", he called for the older son who he hoped could shed some light on his confusion, his darling little daughter was just too much of a dreamer sometimes to realize that Daddy was asking questions to get an explanation. She was also known to jump at people and wrench them into the little place she had made in her family just for them. He could still remember Nick's face vividly when instead of the uncle Phil had gotten added to his name, it had been grandpa for him, six weeks of endless boring surveillance missions, it had been worth it to see his little girl happy.

"But....Okay...", Lila agreed with a long suffering sigh and Cooper must have stood right next to her or at least been around because his big boy called into the phone not a second later.  
"Dad?", and there it was, something familiar, good old Barton men confusion, Cooper would get him. He always did.  
"Uncle Tony?”, he asked for like the third time, “What did I tell you about keeping your sister from jumping at people?", Cooper huffed, just as expected, and Clint could almost picture him scowling at the wall

"I was at school, when he came over. Lila was already home, I couldn't stop her. But Uncle Steve said it would be good for Tony to have someone call him that, make him more human, whatever that is supposed to mean.", Cooper would roll his eyes and then stomp over to watch his sister, mother or baby brother, he always did that, observe, watch, Clint had rubbed off on him in that.

But Clint was too preoccupied with gaping at the TV in his room, needing a whole set of five seconds to process what had just happened.  
"Uncle Steve.....WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE?", and Cooper, the freaking traitor started laughing loud enough to have Laura demand what was happening and Clint felt ready to tear his hair out, “Alright, champ, from the top, I beg you.”, and Cooper sighed before finally falling into the explanation of how the family had suddenly become bigger again without anyone asking Clint.

\--

He tried to sleep, he really tried, but all Pietro could will his body to was lay tensed up and completely at alert on his bed in his new rooms right next to his sisters. Ready to bolt at any second, but horribly exhausted, like ready to start begging his mind to shut the hell up and go to sleep kind of exhausted.

He sighed once more and stared up at the deep blue ceiling, before grabbing a pillow and pressing it over his face, muffling the frustrated groan. He didn't understand it, that was maybe the most frustrating in it, he was so tired and exhausted, why couldn't he sleep.

There was no burning energy anymore that kept him going, his mind was silent and peaceful because Wanda knew he needed some time to process things. He was safe, he was in one of the safest places in this world, one of the most secure buildings the Captain had said, and who would not trust Captain America.

Pietro knew he could go to sleep and nothing would happen to him, he knew that his sister was perfectly fine, had made friends even, felt really comfortable with these people. He might not yet trust all of these people, all of these Avengers, but he knew none of them would ever hurt him or his sister.

Grumbling under his breath, he threw the pillow away and swung his legs over the edge of the freaking huge bed, before getting to his feet. No need pretending when he wouldn't sleep anyway. He didn't even bother to take a look at the clock, it would just make this all so much more pathetic, instead he struggled to get moving and then walked over to the small balcony of his bedroom.

He felt weak, felt small and breakable again suddenly, with his powers all but gone, every step felt like it needed to be forced from his body. He needed to talk, he needed someone to talk or he would go crazy, he couldn't keep this bottled up any longer. Three days and he was losing it, he just needed sleep, he just wanted his head to shut up for one night.

He hadn't felt this vulnerable in so long, he didn't know what to think, didn't know what to do, but he knew whom he could talk to. He knew who might understand.

\--

He groaned at the stiffness of his shoulders when he put the phone down on the table again before sliding down the couch, burrying his face in the pillows and blankets, willing sleep to just take him again without him needing to take any painkillers. Sleep didn't come to him though, instead a knock sounded on the door to his quarters and Clint raised his head in surprise to stare at the black door. 

One small look to the clock in the corner had him standing up despite his protesting limbs, there weren't many people who would dare and knock on his door at a quarter past midnight unless it was something important.

He opened the door and then blinked in surprise at Pietro's tired face, blue eyes framed by dark circles, hair dull and hanging into his face, throwing half of it into shadows. Pietro stared at him for a moment, and then needed another second to work his lips around what he must have come to say, Clint felt his heart dropping before they were even out, "I need help." 

\--

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it! and if you did, why not visit me on tumblr, sometimes there are little notes on my stories to find there.  
> For example me explaining what the whole deal with STRIKE Team Alpha is.
> 
> And now where both story heroes are awake and up and sadly not running, we'll get on with the main plot of this. So let's get some soul searching down, let's bond a team together and of course, let's find our ghost.


	8. Failed Plans A to D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long time it took me to write another chapter, it's just that work can come between me and writing time quite often and this month was hellish.
> 
> But now I give you Part 1 of Chapter 5, and we'll see more interaction between Pietro and Clint now where both of them are awake and Clint finds himself swept up into something he isn't so sure he wants to be a part of, but can't stay away either, because gossip is so nice.

previously:

He opened the door and then blinked in surprise at Pietro's tired face, blue eyes framed by dark circles, hair dull and hanging into his face, throwing half of it into shadows. Pietro stared at him for a moment, and then needed another second to work his lips around what he must have come to say, Clint felt his heart dropping before they were even out, "I need help." 

“Okay.”, Clint said as his only direct verbal response, and even that mostly to himself than to the shivering exhausted boy still standing motionless in front of him, and they looked at each other for another half a minute before Clint finally got himself to move. Pulling Pietro into his rooms and kicking the door shut again, he wasted no time in steering the strangely quiet kid over to the couch, pushing on his shoulders until he sat down and then vanished into his bedroom quickly to get one of the way too big blue blankets that Natasha had bought him as a 'welcome back now stop whining' present.

Pietro didn't say anything while he was busy tucking the blanket around him like he had done it with his own kids plenty of times already when school and kindergarten had sucked again, he was completely aware though that this didn't stand in any league with 'Timmy was pulling my hair again'.

So when he was done, he sunk down to sit on the edge of the couch table, knees almost touching Pietro's while he tried to smile at blue eyes and tried not to show how the worry was clawing his body apart.  
“Wanna tell me what I can help you with?”, Clint spoke when his thoughts didn't stumble over each other anymore, Pietro blinked and then dropped his eyes down to stare at how his hands were fiddling with the blanket, “Because there has to be a reason why you came here and not to your sister.”

“She is already worrying enough, I don't want her to know the truth, not until...”, but Clint stopped him before he could have said another word and Pietro looked up when the warm hand came to rest on his knee, looked up to see blue eyes narrowed in confusion.  
“The truth about what, kid?”, the archer pressed gently, with words and the hand on his knee and Pietro felt the control inside of him slipping, felt the insecurity that he had kept at bay in the last days overwhelm him.

“It's gone.”, he croaked out and then swallowed heavily, closing his eyes when the tears threatened to fall, “It's all gone, I can't even feel it anymore.”, warm hands came to rest on either side of his face and pulled it up again, but Pietro kept his eyes shut. He had cried enough, deep in the night at Barton's bedside, when Wanda had been gone to sleep in her own rooms, because she had that now. He just couldn't take it alone anymore, but it would just not be fair to drag his sister into his mess again, not when she was finally happy, not when she was finally getting what she always wanted since the bombs had fallen.

A family.

“Pietro, come on, look at me, son.”, reluctantly but also unable to resist the quiet bidding, Pietro blinked open watery eyes, “What is gone? Pietro, what is gone. I'm here, alright, I'll help. I'm not going anywhere.”, and the promise was what tipped him over the edge, was what let the walls break and the tears fall. And Pietro threw himself into the quickly reacting arms of Clint as it crashed from his lips.

“My powers are gone. The speed, the energy, the buzzing, the power, it's all gone. There is nothing left anymore. I can't feel it cursing through me anymore. I lost it, Clint, I lost it.”, strong arms were around him in a second, pulling him against a calm shoulder, holding onto him as he sobbed and fell apart. 

“It's okay.”, came the gentle voice close to his ear and he clutched his fingers into a white shirt, the arms around him only held tighter, “It's gonna be okay, Pietro. It's gonna be alright, I promise you. You're not alone, not anymore. You got a team now, okay? People who look out for each other, for you and your sister.”, reluctantly he let himself be pulled upright again until Clint could look at him, sincere, the powerful need to protect was visible in blue eyes, Pietro could recognize that look everywhere, had carried it in his own eyes for so long when it came to Wanda.

But now, he was just so tired. So empty and exhausted.

So he could only shake his head to Clint's words and his body shook again with whole new tears, he couldn't do this, he couldn't move on. No matter how many times Wanda told him that he had been granted a second chance at life for his sacrifice, Pietro couldn't see it as that, he only saw a curse. He must have whispered those confessions out loud because Clint pulled him roughly back against his chest and held onto him again, even rocket them a little.

“It's gonna be okay. It's all gonna be okay, you're not alone, Pietro, you're not alone.”, the words almost washed over him while his body was wrecked with guilt and sobs and the pain of knowing that nothing would be as it was, “I'm here. You got me now, son, no one is going to hurt you again. I'll make sure of it. I'll protect you, even from yourself.”

\--

Clint wrote it down to the tiredness in Pietro, when he closed off not too much later, completely shutting off again, while the TV ran with some soap opera reruns and Clint talked without stopping while whipping up hot chocolate with marshmallows. Telling stories about his life that had Pietro asking sometimes if he was making this up to impress him for some reason, Budapest earned him a scoff so that he had to pull out his phone again to show the records to him, going so far as to ask Friday to pull up the half classified file of Budapest on the tablet he brought over from the bedroom.

No one insulted Budapest. No one insulted the most wreckless, most thoughtless, stupidest, most brilliant and most successful mission Hawkeye had ever brought home. And seriously, for being the guy who had brought in the Black Widow, Clint had always deserved more credit. 

They talked way into the night, about Clint's career, about his family, surprisingly enough for him he also found himself talking without a single second of grief about the girls, told stories every Shield cadet knew from the first week on, answered questions Pietro had about things he had heard from the nurses about him. In return he managed to coax some things out of Pietro about their life in Sokovia before the bombs had fallen, even if his hopes in getting Pietro to talk about what had broken out of him only hours ago completely failed.

He couldn't even take a single step towards present events before Pietro slammed his guards down, so plan B was a goner as well, after plan A had failed dramatically when Clint had to have himself knocked out once more, stupid timing. He knew he should have been there when Pietro woke up, should have been right from the first second but instead the kid had been alone and was not convinced his life was not worth living anymore.

God, he needed Phil. Needed him so much right now. Because yes, Clint had been there, had had those doubts, knew what it felt like, knew how hard it was to accept help, but he also had no idea how Phil had done this. Be patient, be careful, don't pressure too much, don't push too hard. 

“Why did you have to die, Phil?”, he whispered quietly somewhere around five in the morning as Pietro was fast asleep on the couch, head pillowed on Clint's thighs, barely visible under the blue comforter he had wrapped himself into, “He's just a kid, just like I was.”, he continued, fingers stroking gently through silver hair, “He's seen too much, felt too much pain, he was ready to give up. Just like me. Only...I'm not as good as you were, Phil.”, blue eyes looked towards the slowly dawning morning outside the window.

He had started to talk to Phil some weeks after the events in Washington D.C., found strength in the quiet moments where he could have used the patience and the wisdom of his oldest friend, “Could really use some advice here, because I pretty much doubt the efforts I used on Natasha are gonna get me anywhere here.”, Pietro shifted in his sleep, further into the gentle touch of Clint's fingers, “He's so goddamn young. It feels like a lifetime ago that I brought Sarah home, and even if everyone always keeps saying that I knitted her back together, I know that I couldn't have done it without Laura, Nat and you. And now you're gone and I'm running out of plans.”

Are you really, his brain provided him in the warm voice he hadn't heard in three years now, because hadn't he had these doubts as well when it had been little Sarah who had slept fitfully on the couch. And what had he then told Phil when the older man had proposed to get professional help for the traumatized girl.

'She doesn't need a therapist, she needs a family, Phil. Lemme do it the Barton way.' 

The Barton way...

\--

Run. Run. Run. He needed to be faster, he needed to get to her, he needed to reach her. He couldn't let her fall. He needed to be faster, just faster, why couldn't his body move. Why wasn't he moving? He needed to move, he needed to run, he needed to run or Wanda would fall. Why couldn't he run faster. Wanda! Wanda! Wanda!

Someone was screaming in the chaos of the exploding bombs and why was he still standing here, Wanda was shaking, his sister was trembling, she was hurt and she would fall from the bridge if he couldn't be faster. Why was he not running?

“Pietro!”, no, not right now, he needed to get to Wanda, he didn't have time for fighting right now, he needed to get to his sister, “Pietro, listen to me! You're okay!”, no he wasn't, how could he be okay, he couldn't run, he wasn't fast enough. He wasn't fast anymore and Wanda would fall. She would...she would...she would die.

“PIETRO!”, a voice thundered his name and Pietro gasped awake, eyes flying open in shock at how real it had all felt. Dream. Just a dream. It had been a dream. Shaking from head to toe, he didn't really notice the arms that came around his chest and shoulders and pulled him against a soothing body, pulled him against a warm chest and a beating heart.

“Shh, shh, it's okay. You're okay, Pietro, it was just a dream.”, it took a moment until he recognized Clint's voice, but when it hit, he moved his hands to clutch at strong arms, “It's okay, I'm here, you're not alone. Wanda is okay, we're all okay.”, he was aware of the tears on his face, of the aching in his throat that showed him that he had been the one screaming, but he couldn't speak, he couldn't talk, he was so tired, he just wanted to sleep, he wanted to run away, to hide forever from this weakness, but he couldn't.

He couldn't run away, because he didn't think he would make it one more day without Wanda, Clint and the others. He had gone so long without a real family, without a Dad to look up to for advice, without a Mum to offer a soft shoulder to lean on, without the security of a strong home to believe in.

Just why was it so hard to move on.

\--

It didn't take long until Pietro was out again, once more settled and deep asleep under the comfortable blankets on the couch, and Clint reached for his phone, not leaving his steady presence on the ground next to the couch. He sent a quick message to Wanda, who usually was already up at this hour and then waited, and only moved when it knocked on his door quietly.

He stopped in the doorway and pulled Wanda close for a moment, pulling up her face with one finger so he could look at her in the next second, seeing green eyes filled with tears, “I got him. I'll help, I'll fix it. I promise, Wanda.”, and a promise it was, a real one, one only broken by death, because Clint wanted to see them happy, wanted to see them be a part of the team and their family, “I gotta run and talk to Steve now. Stay here with him, yeah?”, Wanda nodded, eyes already shifting to Pietro's still sleeping self on the bed, “When I come back, we need to talk.”

\--

“Come in.”, Steve called and smiled at him as Clint slouched into his office in the late morning, leaving a still exhausted Pietro back in his rooms under Wanda's watchful eyes and soothing hands, “Woah, you look like crap, Clint, what happened?”, Steve had pushed his paperwork away and sat up straighter, worried eyes looking Clint over.

“It's Pietro. Something is really wrong with him.”, worry lines deepening on Steve's face, Clint tried to offer a less tired face, but failed, still refusing the chair Steve nodded to, “I don't have long, I want to go back to him. He came to me last night, broke down.”, Steve muffled a curse at his words and pushed a hand through his hair.  
“What can we do?”, he wanted to know and Clint grimaced, knowing that this would be the hard time, explaining to Steve of all people that he had to let this one go if he wanted to be any help.

“Well, first of all I'm taking him out of any team plans for now, and second of all, lemme do it the Barton way. I can help him find himself again.”, and he fell into a quick explanation of what that meant, seeing quickly that Steve understood but wasn't too happy about not being able to help, “Do you remember, what you said in Sokovia?”, he directed at the blond, wanting to squash the doubts, because for whatever reason Clint needed Steve's silent support now, this wasn't some logistics decision, this was a hurt member of their team, Steve nodded, “You get hurt, hurt them back. You get killed, walk it off.”, Clint repeated it anyway, “So give him a chance to walk it off without the team suffocating him.” 

When Clint left Steve's office ten minutes later and hurried back to his rooms, he was convinced that Steve trusted him to make this right, and maybe that was enough to convince himself as well.

He would help Pietro, because the kid was great and he deserved an even greater future. Clint only had to make him believe in it now as well.

\--

Plan C had been doomed from the start, but a guy could hope.

Clint had used the afternoon after his talk with Steve to ask (Wanda) and drag (Pietro) the twins into the gym to finally get to ground with the idea he had told Steve all these days ago during their deal with the secret projects. And he needed help with the Winter Soldier case, he really did and the twins were the perfect support.

Mostly because until now they hadn't seen how stupid Clint's mission plans could become, nor had they had any interaction with the Soldier or Bucky that made them prone to prejudices or too much worry. And Clint was itching to show some neat little spy tricks to the newbies that could still be impressed by them, Natasha had had already played her tricks on Sam before Clint had even met the guy and Rhodey hadn't been impressed by anything really since meeting Tony at MIT. 

And Vision had memorized his personal record better than Steve ever wanted, Clint had zero chance to impress him.

Wanda and Pietro on the other hand, they liked him and they seen nothing yet, and Clint also had the hopes that showing Pietro that he trusted him with helping in such an important mission would get the boy to open up again. Aka Plan C.

“You want us on your secret Soldier project?”, Wanda questioned in total surprise, looking at him headlong where she was stretching for her workout, Clint made a sound of agreement and braced his weight further against the punching bag. Part of the physical training Sam and Dr.Cho had worked out for Pietro now included boxing because it helped in getting the frustration out and at the same time helped him built up strength again, Clint was only too happy to oblige, boxing he could help with.

“Yes, I want your help. Both of you.”, he made clear with a long look into blue eyes as Pietro pulled back for a moment, taped hands raised, “Take your left leg further back, gives your swing more power. And why not, you're both part of this team, I trust you, Steve trusts you, and we need to make sure that Hydra is not closing in on Bucky while he figures out who he really is.”, Wanda had straightened up again and shared a long look with Pietro.

“Wouldn't Natasha be a better support?”, she brought on the argument Clint had been prepared for, “Or Sam? I get why Steve can't be objective in this, but...”, and she ran out of words and cocked her head at him, Clint smiled.  
“Natasha has history with the Soldier, she needs to come to terms with that first before she can be any help to me. And frankly, Sam wants to help Bucky, but he'd rather insult Tony's inventions to his face than go on another hunt. His words, not mine.”, Pietro snorted and moved for another set of punches, Wanda stretched her arms over her head.

“Well, count me in.”, Pietro said easily and Clint exhanged a long look with Wanda, “He's like what the most mysterious man of the last seventy years, and he has bested Clint many times. I'm definitely keeping around for that to play out once they meet. And hey, helping someone stay away from Hydra, I'm totally game.”, every second word emphasized with another punch into the bag.  
“He did not best me.”, Clint protested quickly, prompting the younger man to laugh, not out of breath at all.

“Of course he did, you told me yourself.”, Pietro shot back and Clint bristled, completely rising to the bait of distracting from his plan to get the kid to talk without even realizing it. Behind them Wanda rolled her eyes and walked over to the treadmill, what idiots.  
“Hey, when you're done snapping at each other like puppies in a play fight, why don't we start talking about what Clint already knows, because I for one don't want to go into this blind.”, Pietro and Clint, having stopped with the workout for a moment, both raised a thumb her way but crowded closer into each other's space, exchanging more quips.

Wanda sighed and set the machine to a light pace, she could only hope Natasha was right and that Clint and Pietro could fix in each other what others had broken, until then she just rejoiced in the fact that they at least focusing on annoying each other for a change. Secret Mission Project. Nice. She was really beginning to like this new job.

\--

In lack of real physical training or power control that Clint could offer Pietro like Steve and Natasha did it with the rest of the team, he got a little more creative with their personal training hours. For now he concentrated on giving the kid his strength back that weeks in a coma had cost him, physical and emotional, because it was so easy to see that Pietro was still only hanging onto a thin thread.

So Clint turned observation and stealth training especially into a game, because it couldn't have been easier with Steve and Tony back under one roof, they just made it too easy.  
“How is Steve not noticing this?”, Pietro whispered, leaning back on the couch again, where both of them were slouching around, TV running on some sports game in the background, but their attention was more focused on the laughing and playfully arguing duo in the kitchen corner. 

Sam and Rhodey had left for the big city again, eager to see a baseball game or basketball or whatever, Bruce and Natasha were honest to god book shopping and Wanda had joined in to get a new hairbrush, because apparently online shopping was not good enough for them. Whatever, man, Clint didn't judge, he had more important things to do, like internally snickering over the face Pietro was pulling three minutes after Clint had told him to observe Tony Stark and tell him what he was seeing and what it could have meant.

Pietro had needed one minute to get it dead on. Clint was actually really proud, and goddamn relieved that he hadn't had to gossip to himself now where Natasha was gone for the day.

“That, son, is one of the biggest mysteries our generations are faced with.”, he answered and grinned, turning it into an eye roll when Tony fucking swooned as Steve laughed over his dumb joke, “Like an old married couple. Dad sitting at the table, sipping a glass of...juice...while Ma is baking. God, I think I need a dentist.”, he groaned in the end.  
“How...how long has this been going on?”, Pietro asked, reaching for another candy bar, he had spoken in that same tone he had used to ask Clint if there was more after they had watched this cool new show two days ago, completely hooked and interested.

Clint congratulated himself on his teaching methods. Fuck the rule book.

He didn't need some pseudo made up mission to show the boy how unnoticed observing went, he had Steve freaking Rogers and Tony fucking Stark, both paranoid with their surroundings but oblivious to each other. This was educational and fucking hilarious.  
“If Natasha is to believe, and she usually always is, then right from the first fucking second. It's like the tragic love story the Avengers did really not need but got anyway.”, Pietro threw him a quick look for his dramatics but didn't comment, which in turn told Clint that he agreed.

For only knowing each other for such a brief time, they could already reach each other quite well, and it was fun, it really was, to teach someone the basics again, to show them what they were capable of in fields they had never even thought about until now. And despite the snarky argument they found themselves in every two hours or so, Pietro still wanted to learn and was happy to be taught by someone whose life this had been for so long already, and he was a natural.

Because when Tony glanced their way, having maybe felt their stares on his person, Pietro suddenly laughed and pulled out his phone, pretending to show him something and Clint playfully scowled at him, pretending to be insulted, in the background, Tony rolled his eyes and got back to ogling Steve.

Yeah, kid, you're gonna go far. Now all I have left to do, Clint thought in the privacy of his brain as he watched how Pietro stuffed the last candy bar into his mouth and then jumped to his feet to venture over into the kitchen area, is make you start believing in yourself again.

And have him stop sleeping on his couch. But that was step two, step one would start tomorrow morning.

\--

“I don't understand.”, Clint just kept on grinning despite the clear confusion in Pietro's eyes and turned back around from where he had been shuffling around the lockers and was now holding onto a pair of boots, checking them over to figure out who they may have belonged to at one point.  
“You don't have to understand, that's the whole point of this. Get your head clear and empty.”, he explained and pushed the boots into Pietro's slowly reacting hands, “They should fit. Do you have your jacket?”, a bewildered nod followed and Clint smiled.

Grabbing onto the kid's elbow, he dragged him out of the locker rooms and towards the backdoor exit, it would be fun. It had been ages since he had last been able to do this.  
“Be careful.”, Steve called after them as they passed him sitting in the kitchen with the newspaper, waiting for the coffee to run through. Pietro whipped his head around and stared, while Clint simply waved and pushed Pietro further down the corridor.

“What are you doing with me?”, Pietro broke his silence some minutes later as he sat in the passenger seat of the car Clint had taken from the garage, an inconspicuous silver Ford that must have hurt Tony to buy, but it worked well now in letting them blend into the other weekend travelers in the countryside. Families, couples, tourists, group of friends, all out to enjoy the beautiful weather with some hiking and some picnics.

“I'm taking you away from the base for a day.”, Clint didn't beat around the bush, there was so sense in it, Pietro could see through him better than anyone else since he had met Natasha, “Give us both a chance to breathe.”, because yes, Clint needed this just as much as he did. Pietro frowned at him for a moment, but then stared out of the window again, Clint noted though that he was already relaxing, maybe this would work, he thought as he turned the car off the main road and up towards one of the central parking lots in the forest.

\--

Plan D failed as well.

Which didn't mean that they didn't have a lot of fun, it may as well have been the best day Clint had had since Sokovia that didn't involve Laura or the kids, and Pietro laughed and joked and moved way more effortlessly than on the base, but he still didn't let go completely. There was still something guarded about him, and Clint threw his plans into the wind one hour into their hike, it wasn't the right moment.

What counted was that the kid was enjoying himself, that he talked, even if not about the gnawing panic of being left behind, not about the future, but he talked. And even if Clint still hadn't found a way through his stubbornness, he at least found out more about his new friend. 

"I still don't understand what the lesson in all of this is supposed to be, but it's nice.", Pietro commented and didn't take his eyes off of the land below them, how the forest and the river stretched out for miles. They had reached the meadow at the peak of the hill after three hours and were lucky to not have it crowded so much. Clint smiled and clipped another rock over the cliff, waiting until he could feel blue eyes on the side of his head.  
"There is no lesson, Pietro. You're finally free and you can finally find out what you want. Nothing is holding you back, you have a second chance. A second chance to explore all this, a second chance to figure out if what I show you is boring or exciting.", and he spread his hands out, "A second chance to be free."

“So if I say I want a pizza on the way back, you're going to buy me one?”, chuckling over the sheepy face turned his face, Clint threw his arm around Pietro's shoulders and welcomed how he leaned closer, grinning in mischief.

“I might even buy you two, but you gotta race me to the car.”, Pietro was off before Clint had even finished, he may not be the fasted man alive at the moment, but the kid could still run and Clint was groaning over his own stupid idea ten minutes after speaking it, at least it was downhill.

\--

Steve didn't look up from the maps when it knocked on his office door, just nudged another Hydra flag further up the Mississippi and called out a simple “Come in.”, grunting right after he narrowed his eyes at the uncoordinated wild arrangement of known and destroyed Hydra bases, he let his elbows hit the table and slump down to rest his chin in his propped up hands.

He could hear the door opening and someone step into the room before closing the door again, but he still didn't look away from this mess of flags that had spread out over the entire Northern American continent like a disease in the last months. And he honestly wondered if there was even a way how they could stop it.

“The frustration doesn't look good on yah, Cap.”, and then as the voice spoke so daringly close to his ear, Steve nearly jumped right out of his skin and whirled around, snapping his head up and to the right so fast that something cracked in his neck. The man with the smug grin and the black hair danced out of his way with such easy steps that it looked choreographed, because the truth had always been that despite all secrets, they knew each other so well.

“Tony.”, Steve breathed out in surprise, but then let a smile take over his expression from the shocked blankness and made one step forward again to hold out his hand towards the returned genius, but Tony surprised him once more when instead of grabbing his hand, he went in for a hug, patting his back with three hard claps.

“The one and only. Back for active duty and all that fuzz.”, Tony grinned and then pulled back again, making a one-eighty turn on his feet to take in the office space, “Looks much more lived in since the last time I was here. You're not sleeping here as well, right? Was bad enough when Agent did that, and I didn't design this place with personal quarters for each Avenger for no one sleeping in them.”, and as Tony babbled on, running his fingers through paperwork on the desk, Steve breathed out and in deeply and let the tension fall from his shoulders.

It felt so familiar that it was almost too good to be true, and he fought the urge to pinch himself while he watched Tony move around his office. He had missed him, and he only now realized just how much and how bad, just how much he had needed a friend like Tony around.  
“You're back.”, Tony raised an eyebrow at him and Steve cursed himself for his stupid brain, he probably should have slept longer last night, and maybe even in his bed and not on a chair.

“Right.”, Tony started up carefully and watched him with such an investigating look that Steve first flinched and then narrowed his eyes at him, “When was the last time you slept in your rooms, Capsicle?”, and of course the questions would start. They had barely seen each other in the last days, a quick glance, a brief smile here and there since the mess the last mission had been, both of them so busy, especially for Tony there had been a lot to catch up to, a lot the technicians had for him to upgrade and take a look at, whereas Steve had dealt with the returned doubled amount of leader responsibility after Clint had been taken out.  
“I don't need cuddling, Tony. I am simply busy with leading a new organisation and arranging attacks on Hydra.”, Tony raised his eyebrow higher and Steve swallowed a curse, damn him and those eyes, “Four days ago.”

“And you staid up since then because...”, Steve turned back around to study the map again and felt Tony come to step around the table so he could still look at his face, he groaned and looked up.  
“Because I staid with Clint first and then fell asleep for two nights here. It happens, you of all people should know better than to call me out on it.”, like the child he sometimes still was, Tony stuck his tongue out at him, prompting Steve to roll his eyes, but the smile it crept back onto his face before he could help himself. 

“Oh, but I know better, Cappy.”, grimacing at the new nickname, Steve deadpanned at the billionaire until he continued, smug and grinning and loud and bright as sunshine on a rainy day as always, it felt so good to have this version of Tony back, “To bed at 11pm, up at 8am for breakfast and a light jog on the running machine. Ask Jarvis, I have a shedule now, no more all nighter's.”  
“Who are you and where is Tony Stark?”, both of them laughed and Steve closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the carefree humor fall back into his chest, so needed after the nights he had spent shaking awake upon seeing Clint fall right out of his hands.

“I'm glad you came back.”, he said sincerely nevertheless some moments later when their laughter had stopped, and Tony had turned his attention down at the map himself.  
“I'm sorry that it took so long.”, blinking at the unfamiliar apologizing tone in Tony's voice, and judging by the challenging glint in brown eyes, the creator was voting for forgetting it even happened, Steve gladly went with it.

“What is our secret project doing?”, Tony changed the topic, having Steve sigh and drag a hand over his face to shake off the frustration.  
“Running into dead end's and being delayed by Hydra bases popping up like some fungus left and right.”, Steve declared, “Friday, update the Hydra files with the new information over base location we got and open project Alpha.”, ordered and done and Steve shifted the hologram files around until he was able to show Tony the paths into nowhere.

“And birdie's missing person's case?”, Tony wanted to know while he skimmed through the footage, pictures and theories they had collected so far, nothing more than the proved appearance of the female Strike team at their hotel for the mission in Odessa.  
“He doesn't tell me, nor does he give me any updates. I promised him to be patient and I will be.”, Steve grumbled in the end, fighting down the urge to stomp his feet, Tony snickered and looked over to him, trying to catch his eyes, ducking his head down when Steve pouted over his own childishness.

“Is he asking about the girls?”, the dark haired man tried to justify his frustrated grumbling, but Steve shrugged his shoulders, he knew he was being stupid over it and there was no need for Tony to coddle him. Clint had his reasons, Steve had his own, they were both doing their jobs.  
“Of course, but that's something else. We know Bucky is alive and on his own, free and fighting against Hydra, even when they don't know it's him.”, he pointed out and Tony nodded, “We don't even know where the girls might be, let alone if all of them are still alive.”

“We will know. We'll get answers.”, Tony promised, like a half broken record, he didn't grow tired to be the optimistic one this time, kept Steve's spirit up when he was already sure the doubts would win, it had surely been the best decision to ask Tony for help when Agent Radcliff had to take a step back. And having this friendship back, that meant a whole lot to Steve as well.  
“I never asked you...but you seemed so eager to help. Did you know them?”, he hadn't needed long to realize that Tony didn't always react well to personal questions, that had been clear after only ten minutes of knowing him, but then again, he was the same, they had both lost too much. The more surprising it had been though that Steve had quickly become the one exception outside of Pepper and Rhodey who was allowed to ask everything and wasn't in danger of getting snapped at in response.

“Not all of them.”, Tony answered quietly, eyes drawn back to the project files on the wall, “I didn't know Agent Viktora, seems she was really good at evading people.”, Steve couldn't help but huff in agreement, he got it now, understood the absence of the Strike officer, understood why it could have gotten awkward and maybe even a little painful, but he still couldn't help but regret to not have gone after her. To have gotten to know her while he still had the chance.

“Agent St.Oaks though...”, Tony pulled him out of his thoughts again before it could have gotten sad, and Steve looked up to see the other man grinning suddenly, “Oh, she made an impression, alright. Quite the impression.”, Steve couldn't help but laugh and raise a questioning eyebrow at the same time, because yes, the quick mouthed agent had made a lasting impression on him as well, but he doubted it was for the same reasons.

He sincerely hoped it was not for the same reasons.

Tony turned towards him and grinned brighter, “Believe it or not, but she broke into the tower.”, and that had Steve blink twice, thank god, “Yeah, right? Art thief extraordinaire, I find out when you send me those files. Have to ask myself now why I never fucking bothered to check her out back then, got me out of some hot mess a little later that year, with the help of her team and those guys from douche-bag’s bunch, but somehow she stuck more in my memory.”, Tony's smile was almost fond.

“And Julie?”, Steve prodded further, letting himself remember the small but dangerously feisty and quick woman who had always been happy to help him with something or sit down to talk about god knows what when he just needed to escape his own thoughts. He remembered her taller but younger friend who welcomed him to this new century with way less protocol as any other agent, who had always found him when he had free time and pushed pencils and papers into his hands.

“Seaway? Didn't really know her, but Pepper and her got along quite well.”, Tony explained and chuckled, and then shuddered, sending a quick look over to the picture of the trained assassin.  
“Were scared of her?”, Steve snickered, ignoring the heated glare that came his way out of brown eyes, instead he walked closer again and came to stand right next to Tony, elbows brushing against each other.  
“Fortunately I wasn't informed of her background until recently.”, Tony made him aware of the lethal skill set the missing woman shared with the infamous Black Widow.

“So why the eagerness to help?”, Steve wondered why he hadn't asked that question earlier, he had simply jumped in gratitude when Tony had offered his help.  
“Like I said, got my sorry ass out of some potential shit some time ago. They're good people, Cap. People who meant quite much to Clint, Romanov and you.”, which basically meant that Tony wasn't ready to talk about the real reason for his cooperation just yet, but Steve could wait, Natasha and Clint both used the same technique, and they had both always come back with answers after some time. Steve had learned to be more patient.

“And yeah, to Agent as well.”, Tony continued, “I'm also still itching to punch Rumlow in the face, dead or not, and finding the girls might bring me one step closer to that.”, he growled and clenched his hands into fists.  
“You'll have to get in line.”, Steve growled as well, low in the back of his throat, and Tony hummed but staid silent, they had talked about it much after DC. Most of the time on the phone while Steve had driven all across the country with Sam in pursuit of an ever evading Bucky, and then even more in person once Steve had given up and moved into the tower.

There has been endless nights, where neither of them had been able to catch a single minute of sleep, too shaken by nightmares, too anxious to relax, so they had met down in Tony's workshop. Steve had sat on a corner of the workbench or on the couch and had sketched and drawn, notebook after notebook had been filled, while Tony had chattered and worked on new suits and other stuff. It had been, despite the ever gnawing worry over Bucky, it had probably be the happiest time Steve had had since waking up in a whole new world. They had laughed and joked, teased each other and then in some nights, when the nightmares had been most vivid, they had even talked about their ghosts.

About the war, about the Commandos, about the train, about Bucky and the Valkyrie, about Afghanistan and Obie Stane, about the events in DC and Malibu. 

It had been good, to talk about what had happened with someone who wasn't so involved in it like Natasha and Clint had been, or completely new to all of it as Sam still was. Tony had known Rumlow and the Strike team, but he hadn't known him, hadn't fought side by side with him and trusted the man to have his back.  
“We'll find them.”, Tony's hand was suddenly on his and Steve snapped back out of his thoughts, only then noticing how his hand had curled into a fist, the small flag pins digging into his skin.

“Yes, we will.”, he agreed and dropped the flags upon the table, after Tony had pulled his hand back up, stuffing both his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he rolled back onto his heels.  
“Come on, take a break, unfortunately Hydra will still be there tomorrow, you can let go for one evening.”, Tony smirked and Steve sighed, dared a look over to the paperwork, “And I already sent Romanoff to drag Bruce out of the lab, no work tonight.”

\--

“What's going on here?”, Steve asked when he stepped into the communal living room with Tony at his side a little later, watching for a moment how most of the others were mingling around and not so subtly observing Clint ranting into a phone at the windows. Steve prayed that it wasn't Laura on the other side of that line. 

Sam, Rhodey and Vision snapped back to their game of cards at the table like teenager having been caught at eavesdropping and Tony snickered at his side. Natasha and Wanda looked up briefly from where they were painting the younger woman's fingernails on the floor by the couch on which Bruce was sitting with the StarkPad in his hands, all of them still glancing over to Clint when the archer let out another annoyed grunt.

The only one who didn't stop staring at Clint as if he was so much more interesting than the TV show running in the background was Pietro, and Steve doubted Clint would even be annoyed with it, the kid was probably able to get away with everything with him these days, as long as it meant he was doing something again. And granted, the show on the TV was dull and horrible to begin with.

“Guys, he's got that twitching jaw again, someone better speak up.”, Tony warned playfully and sidestepped Steve's flapping hand, moving over to sit down on the armchair on Natasha's left.  
“He's trying to get a favor from an old contact.”, she replied quite uninterested, way too focused on Wanda's fingers and the swirls of red color she was painting upon black nails.

But all of them jumped and flinched a little when Clint suddenly started yelling, “Oh, I am breathing just fine, Trickshot. I haven't breathed this well in decades. Now, start talking.”, in all of this ruckus Steve had walked past Tony and sat down next to Pietro, trying very hard not to chuckle when he saw the kid playing Angry Birds of all games on Clint's personal phone right now.

At the windows Clint was silent and supposedly listening for a little longer, but then his jaw hardened and Steve saw blue eyes flashing dangerously, next to Tony, done with Wanda's nails, Natasha grew still. A good sign that something had not gone as planned, the motion settled over Wanda and Tony as well and then hit them all.

“Fine. You want it the hard way, Barney, you get the hard way.”, Clint snapped in a voice so low it sent chills down Steve's back and then a phone got smashed against the closest wall, Tony shuddered when it crashed to the ground in tiny pieces. Clint was breathing in measured breaths, fists clenched at his sides and his face set into a hard mask of fury and annoyance.

Next to him, Steve felt how Pietro was already pocketing the phone again, eyes glued to Clint's every move, and the only one really daring to move was Natasha as Clint whirled around to look at them. They looked at each other for a moment, holding another silent conversation that had Steve and Tony grinding their teeth and Bruce huffing out a frustrated breath, you think you get used to it, but you don't.

“You're going.”, Natasha stated after a moment, but whether because she wanted to or because she had seen their displeasure, Steve would never dare to guess on.  
“Oh, like hell I am going. I am so going, but not with you.”, Natasha nodded while everyone watched in utter silence and paralysis how both assassins faced off in the middle of the room, even Tony kept his mouth shut, “You will only scare them off.”, Natasha nodded again and Clint turned to Steve, “I'm leaving for some days. I need to run down some contacts, and probably punch some of them in the face.”

“Sure, do what you have to do. Just take something so we can reach you.”, was the only comment Steve offered, slightly confused, Clint's eyes flickered to his left.  
“I will. Pietro, you're coming with me.”, the archer declared and the whole room stopped, complete silence while both Steve and Pietro stared with wide eyes at Clint.  
“Me?”, Pietro asked, completely stunned while at the same time Steve pressed an entirely shocked “Him?” past his lips, it wasn't like Pietro hadn't been medically cleared for missions, even without powers, he was a valuable member of their team, Steve and Clint had talked about it, but still, the kid wasn't even past his depression yet.

“Yes.”, Clint answered nevertheless and narrowed his eyes at Steve, “He will be coming with me.”, and his voice left no place for arguing, reminding Steve of the words he had spoken to him a couple of days ago. Lemme do it the Barton way. But no matter if he had agreed and given his blessings for Clint's unconventional way to get Pietro out of his darkness, he still did not have to like it that an untrained new team member was going to accompany Clint on a trip to talk to old contacts, because that surely translated to assassins, criminals and all else kind of shady people with Hawkeye.

“Who are these people? Trickshot and Barney?”, Tony spoke up before there could have been any argument between their leaders, and his own curiosity must have won out as well, Steve nodded in agreeing with his questions, shifting his legs to let Pietro pass through to get to Clint's side.  
“They're the same person.”, Natasha answered without looking at anyone while she collected her nail polish utensils into the small trunk again, while at the same time Clint pushed Pietro through the door into the corridor and called out over his back, “He's my brother.”

“Wait, what?”

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wanna read more for this verse, why don't you check out the oneshot "The Shield That Wasn't Meant To Go Down" which shows what Tony and Clint were up to while Steve was in the hospital after DC.
> 
> Chapter 5 Part 2 will come tomorrow.


	9. New Enemies and Old Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where Clint deals with too many annoying and frustrating people, gets bad news, Pietro is just confused or amused and other people get laid.

Part 2:

previously:

“Who are these people? Trickshot and Barney?”, Tony spoke up before there could have been any argument between their leaders, and his own curiosity must have won out as well, Steve nodded in agreeing with his questions, shifting his legs to let Pietro pass through to get to Clint's side.  
“They're the same person.”, Natasha answered without looking at anyone while she collected her nail polish utensils into the small trunk again, while at the same time Clint pushed Pietro through the door into the corridor and called out over his back, “He's my brother.”

“Wait, what?”

\--

“Pietro, meet Madame Sarcastic, and Madame Sarcastic, meet Pietro.”, Clint called out as he pushed Pietro up the ramp into his Quinjet – dark purple because Tony was equally annoying and perfect – and waved a hand around, as Pietro threw a completely confused look over his shoulder at him, but before he could have asked a question, the lights in the jet flickered to life and another voice spoke up.

“Good afternoon to you, too, Iowa.”, the female voice waltzed through the words like singing, “And it is a great pleasure to meet you, Pietro, I've been told a great many things about you.”, Pietro could only blink as Clint pushed him to sit down in the co-pilot's seat and then swung himself into the other one right next to him, scowling slightly.  
“Figures you would like him better already, you're a frigging pain, Angie.”, Clint grumbled out and got started on the pre-flight routines.

“Angie?”, Pietro questioned carefully and then jumped when a holographic face of a young woman appeared in front of him, “Holy shit, don't do that.”  
“Apologies.”, Angie grinned in her snarky nature, Clint snorted, sensing quickly that she didn't mean it one bit, “My name is Angie, I am the Barton's AI, responsible for Clint's personal Quinjet and the running of the house, or at least the parts that Laura allows me to do.”, Pietro simply stared and then slowly turned to Clint.

“Why does she come with a face?”, he asked, throwing another glance at the blond woman as she chuckled, Clint snickered and fired up the turbines.  
“Makes it easier for the kids when there is a face to speak to. Now, strap in, we're going in the air.”, he explained and let the jet roll out of the hangar, “Angie, we're making a trip to Romania.”

\--

The majority of the flight was spent in easy chatter, and Clint realized quickly that Pietro was immensely interested in flying, everything about the jet spiked his curiosity and more than once he needed Angie's help in answering questions, but it was good to see him so curious and eager. But as Angie announced their impending arrival in Romanian airspace, Clint closed off, and with such a rapid snap in his posture and behavior that Pietro was left a little bit stunned. 

They had been talking about Clint's suspicion that his brother knew something about Bucky, about the Soldier's whereabouts and his current vendetta, and blue eyes had stopped laughing and had become cold and lost in a grudge and hatred that Pietro hadn't seen in the archer until then. Clint was his friend, he was even maybe family already, but Clint was also a dangerous assassin, and as much as Hawkeye fascinated him, he also freaked him out, because this focus, this deadly precision and the well chosen words, it was so far from who Clint Barton was.

And then again, it wasn't. He was a mystery and Pietro wanted to know more and more.

“Does he know you're an Avenger now?”, Pietro asked as the Quinjet slowly set for the landing, behind the wheel Clint glanced his way, still tense.  
“Pretty sure it would have been hard to miss that. Even in Romania.”, he answered and the jet broke through the clouds, revealing the forest covered hills and the endless grassy plains of the East European country, “And if he missed that memo until now, he will know soon enough.”

“How exactly do you know where we need to go?”, maybe it wasn't the best, but Pietro had the feeling that if he kept him talking, Clint would not space out again, and now he smirked even in response, the first sign of Clint in this tensed and closed off assassin he had become suddenly. Pietro couldn't hold back the breath of relief and Clint must have noticed, because for a moment he looked guilty.  
“God, I'm sorry, kid. I'm freaking you out.”, taking one hand off the steering wheel of the jet, Clint dragged it over his face and slumped into the seat, the rigidness bleeding out of his body.

“No, it's...you...”, Pietro tried to mask his unease at first but then sighed, “Yeah, you did. It's just this is not a side of you I saw until now, it was a little shocking.”, he admitted and sent an apologizing smile towards the older man.  
“I'm okay, Pietro, I swear. Barney...he just has a talent to bring back old memories and dark thoughts without even being around yet.”, Clint spoke silently and reached back to the steering wheel to direct the Quinjet to a meadow behind a single small old house in the middle of nowhere between forest A and B, east of mountain C, “But I'll be fine, we're here simply for business. Ask Barney if he has heard anything about the Winter Soldier and then leave again. In, out, simple.”

“Do you truly believe that?”, Pietro asked as the jet hovered a moment before touching down, at the house a door slammed open and a middle aged man stormed into the backyard, worn out leather jacket around his shoulders, patched pants hanging low and a beard that would have still looked disgusting on a caveman, Pietro blinked as he unstrapped himself, “So that's your brother?”

Clint laughed, already on his feet and holstering a simple handgun, no need to take the bow, there was no danger here for him, not from Barney, not anymore, “Yup.”, he replied, waiting until Pietro caught up with him, “Here, take this.”, he said and handed a combat knife to Pietro who grinned and pocketed it quickly, “And to answer your question, I stuck him with a tracker ten years ago, he hasn't found it til this day. Now let's see how pissed off he will be in five minutes.”, he sing-songed and slammed his hand against the button to lower the ramp.

“BARTON!”

\--

It went about as good as expected.

\--

“Say that again!”, Clint suddenly whirled around and stalked up to the other man again, and Pietro tensed, sensing the slip from controlled to too dangerous immediately, Clint was edging on losing it, “Say it again, what you just said, real slow. Repeat it, Barney.”, and once more the name got snarled but the older Barton didn't even look fazed. Whatever had happened to him, he didn't know what anger was anymore. He didn't care anymore. He had played with fire and embraced the burn long ago, there wasn't anything anymore that could scare him, not even death himself.

“Listen, Clint. I'm out, alright? I quit, all I want is this boring life in this small house in this goddamn village. I want peace for myself, but no one is respecting that. People come in here so often that it's a fucking miracle I haven't had the officials storm down these walls already. So whatever information you think I can give you, I need a promise first.”, Pietro felt every last nerve in his body coil down for a fight, this was getting ugly if Trickshot kept on pushing on Clint's buttons, but his annoyance grew as well. It was obvious now, wasn't it? Barney Barton knew something about the Soldier, something he knew they wanted, something they could use. 

“A promise?”, Clint snapped and his fingers twitched for the gun he had stuck into the holster at his back, Pietro tried to fight his nerves down, “When was my word ever worth a fucking cent to you?”, when indeed, surely not when he had thrown his baby brother into the hands of ruthless criminals masking themselves as circus attractions, not when he had betrayed his baby brother and thrown him into the dirty back alleys of this world. And definitely not when he had taken the shot that would have gotten his baby brother killed if it hadn't been for Clint's guardian angel to swoop in and finally give him the life he deserved.

“We're not what we once were, brother.”, still no sign of any emotion on Barney Barton's face, “We're older now, we've both seen things.”, that put it mildly, Pietro and Clint snorted in sync, Barney was brought out of his run for a moment, the first sign of something in his face than cold indifference, “Good and bad. We can't sit on old grudges any longer.”, judging by the look on Clint's face he could and he would sit on it until the end of time, “Grant me neutrality and I will help you, tell you what I know and offer you the same messenger services that I gave to them.”  
“Who is them?”, but Barney just nailed him with a glare and Clint threw up a hand, slapping it against the window, “Fine, whatever. Neutrality granted, we're too busy hunting after real bad guys anyway. Do whatever you want, as long as you don't come in my...our way. Now tell me who they are.”

“He calls himself Crossbones.”, well, fuck, “Soldier called him Commander. Don't know who the other guy was though, they were here like five days ago. Soldier snuck in the day after, scared the hell out of me, asked the same questions you did now.”, Barney grunted in reply, leaning back in his chair, looking like the smug bastard from the wanted pictures on the wall in the atrium, whose face Pietro would just love to see plastered against the floor under his boot, for everything he had done to his friend. Clint though froze upon his brother's words.

“Was the other guy by chance, tall, brunet and pissed off looking?”, he asked, staring right out of the window at the cloaked Quinjet, fingers gripping the gun in an unbreakable hold, Pietro felt his own hand sneak back to the knife Clint had given him an hour ago.  
“Well, he looked more like a dog panting after its master, but yeah.”, Barney answered, completely oblivious to the tension and alarm in his little brother's body language, but how would he know, he had never spent a single second really looking at his brother, he had never seen what Clint was truly capable of.

“Them?”, Pietro spoke up quietly for the first time and Clint nodded, forehead falling against the window, “Do you think Bu...the Soldier went after them?”, well that certainly would rid of them of two problems quite easily, but Clint still shook his head.  
“No, that's not his style. I don't know exactly what kind of vengeance trip he is on right now, but he wants to remain off the grid, and going after Hydra's big guns would put him too much in the spotlight, and don't look at me like that, Barney, you knew what they were.”, Clint snarled in the end again and wrenched his head around to glare at the other man.

“I had my suspicions.”, Barney agreed, still so damn calm and uninterested, he didn't have a care for anything anymore.  
“Okay, perfect, great, now onto real business. I need you to relay a message to the Soldier, we have reason to believe he is still in area and I need him to hear something. I don't care if it's you or one of your minions, but tell him that Hawkeye has his back and would like a word when it fits into his so busy schedule.”, Pietro raised an eyebrow at the smirk that had slowly stolen itself over Clint's face, while Barney had gone a little pale, suited him right, cocky asshole.

“How do you know he knows who...”, Barney started what was supposed to be another taunt, but was stopped by Clint before he could have fully formed that question  
“He does, let's just keep it at that.”, Clint answered, voice dangerously low and heavy with hidden meanings and Pietro could see just how a shiver worked its way down the other man's back, even if he tried hard not to let it show, “Just do it, Barney and I might actually ignore that you've been helping freaking Hydra.”, Clint continued to spit out and broken emotionless cold eyes flickered from him over to Pietro, who simply stared back, fully unimpressed.

“How do you want me to get his attention, huh? I'm not serving myself on a freaking silver platter to the fucking Winter Soldier, Clint.”, prompting an eye roll from both of them, because seriously, now you're showing a temper, Clint obviously had enough.  
“Oh for fuck's sake.”, Clint spoke as he was already gesturing for Pietro to leave, following him towards the back door, talking without looking back over his shoulder, “Just think of something, Barney, tell him Hawkeye is calling for a sniper pissing contest, I don't care, just do it.”, and his words got ended when he slammed the door shut again and stalked over to the Quinjet.

\--

Once the jet was up in the air, Clint wordlessly ordered Angie to take over and went to his feet, walking to the back and starting to pace the second he had room.  
“Are you okay?”, Pietro called from the co-pilot seat, where he had twisted around to have an eye on him and the jet systems at the same time.

“Nope.”, Clint made his answer short and turned for another round, gears turning and churning, thoughts racing, hands itching to shoot something and someone.  
“Can I do anything?”, Pietro wanted to know casually, watching his every move, “Because you look ready to crawl up the walls.”, he said almost the exact words Clint would have used to describe his mood in this moment.

“Just watch the systems, let Angie tell you more about the controls, and if you want, even try them. Angie will stop you from crashing us.”, three steps left, turn, three steps right, turn, three steps left, turn, head start working, come on, come on, Barton, you can unriddle this.  
“Is that correct, Ma'am?”, he heard Pietro call out and saw him shift forwards again, hands already flicking over the necessary control panels.

God, he wanted to sit down and watch him enjoy himself, but fucking Hydra. God, brain, come on, we can figure out how this is possible.

“I will answer every question you might have, Mister Maximoff and be delighted to teach you. And the name is Angie.”, and with her speaking calmly in the background, Clint plopped to the ground and sat down cross-legged, reaching for the gun to play with. You got this, Barton. 

\--

He hated hospitals, he had always hated hospitals and more even he had always hated waking up from anesthesia, this groggy painful path through a fogged up hazy mind. This fucking feeling of being defenseless and at someone's mercy. Blind and deaf and senseless. Fucking painkillers, fucking body with its fucking low rate of being able to have them work properly without freaking turning him into a damn zombie.

“Woah.”, his sluggish mind finally granted him access to his hearing and the voice shot right through him, “Easy there, big guy. You're okay.”, his senses slowly connected to each other and his brain again as he felt two hands pushing his chest down upon a bed again, where he must have struggled to get upright before, “Just lay down a moment longer, alright, Brock? Just one more moment until your head catches up to the rest of you.”

Jack. That was Jack's voice, Jack's hands.

And his slow mind snapped back into full alert and recognition. Jesus fucking Christ, if this shit did not work out, people would fucking feel the pain for ages.  
“Did it work?”, he croaked out as his tongue finally behaved again, eyes blinking open slowly, finding Jack leaning to his left, grabbing something from a table nearby in this small room. Not a hospital, even though it certainly smelled like one, but no, this was a base, Brock reminded himself, one of Hydra's still secret ones. 

The something turned out to be a glass of water that Jack held out for him to take while he propped him up with an arm behind his back, “Drink and I talk.”, he ordered and smirked at the same time, and the relief on his face was enough to answer the question before the real one even followed, “It worked. Was up in the clouds for some days, but you pulled through, even started to heal some more.”, Jack explained and carefully reached out to pull back the sleeve of the shirt Brock was wearing as he handed the now empty glass back.

Jack revealed pink skin, the pink skin of freshly healed wounds, “They say some scarring might remain, but...you look better, Brock.”, he smiled, and then really smiled as the pain of strained muscles and scar tissue didn't appear, his hand snapped up, touching his face, feeling the smooth skin, the lack of raised scars, “Yeah, back to your ugly visage.”, Jack teased, but meant something entirely else, Brock could see it in his eyes.

But before he could have acted on it, he saw what was standing in the corner of the room, propped up on a mechanical support stand, and with Jack's quick hands helping, he managed to sit up, pushing his legs over the edge of the bed.  
“Is that...the suit?”, he asked and Jack nodded, eager and proud, slipping from his chair to his feet and walking over to the black suit, perfect mix between combat suit and human tank, “Did you add that?”, he questioned when Jack let one finger slide over the crossed white lines on the chest piece.

“Knew you would like them. So what do you say? I'm not gonna let you actually try it until you passed some physical tests, but...”, Jack stopped babbling though when Brock stood up, all on his own, surprised as well over the speed his body was suddenly recovering with. So this round had been successive, they had finally got the serum and the treatment right. Brock didn't take his eyes off the suit and Jack while he walked over until he was finally able to touch the suit himself, his suit, his chance at finally making right what had been taken from him.

The right for revenge.

And this time, no freaking super soldier would be able to stop him, because now, he was one himself.

“I like it. It's brilliant, it's exactly how we planned it.”, Jack grinned and he looked so damn like himself again that Brock entirely stopped noticing the Crossbones suit and switched his attention to the man standing beside it, “I'm back, Jack. I'm finally me again.”, no more waiting, no more planning, finally he could let the action follow.  
“I know, I know.”, Jack agreed, eyes slipping close as Brock reached up with both hands to touch his face, thumbs stroking over prominent cheekbones, “I've missed you.”

“Then let's just stay here for a while, no one would look for us here. Let's make up for lost time.”, Brock whispered almost and then pressed closer, slamming Jack back against the wall with a strength that shocked him for a moment, Jack looked down at him with wide blown eyes, Brock though smirked, “Oh, now, this is something I can get used to.”, and whatever witty reply Jack had wanted to made in the next second got swallowed by his mouth.

And outside the sun sank lower and let long shadows fall over the Potemkin stairs, so easily visible from the window of their room in the former hotel that now posed as the entrance to Hydra's last big base in Europe. Situated right in the heart of Odessa.

\--

Clint pushed himself past Tony into Steve's office but still held the other back from leaving, nodding at Pietro to close the door behind himself, “Friday, privacy lockdown.”, he spoke the second the door was closed, Tony and Steve both froze, “Rumlow and Rollins are alive.”, Steve growled and jumped to his feet where he had sat behind his desk and Tony turned to punch the wall, hissing when he stepped back again, one hand cradling the other.

“Woah, wait a second.”, the genius then suddenly snapped his head up and bright brown eyes looked at Clint and Pietro while Steve walked around the desk over to him, grabbing Tony's hand to check it over, Tony didn't even flinch and Pietro gently poked Clint against the elbow, he flexed his arm, let the other man know he had seen that as well, “I give you Rumlow. I'm actually never going to take falling as a cause of death anymore.”, he swayed a bit when Steve let go of his hand to swat the back of his head, but then continued on undisturbed, “But Rollins? The guy got taken out! Natasha doesn't lie.”

“She slammed a gun against his throat and then went on to slam his head against a table.”, Clint repeated from memory, he had talked to Natasha herself and had seen the footage from the Triskelion that Tony had managed to save and restore, “He was unconscious when Natasha and Fury left, but every Strike agents learns to fake it.”  
“He was unconscious when a helicarrier crashed into the building.”, Tony continued to point out the impossible, but Clint shook his head, moving further into the room and over to the windows.

“We don't know that. The footage cuts off after Fury and Natasha are gone, but minutes before the helicarrier destroyed the floor. Jack could have gotten out.”, it actually hurt to say it, no matter how much he was living by his rules, believed in them, this had been one time where he had been praying that his fucking gut instinct would have been wrong. Because Rumlow and Rollins deserved to die. For having him believe that they had her back, had their backs, for making him think they cared about the lights of his life. 

“But why wait and play dead in the first place? Why not flee?”, Pietro asked, Steve pulled both hands up into his hair and started to pace, Tony remained standing by the door, hands twitching before he pulled up the tablet again, beginning to click away.  
“Rollins knew Natasha, he knew he had zero chances to get away.”, Steve explained, blue eyes narrowed on an invisible point on the floor as he walked up and down the room. Clint leaned back against the window front and began to tap his fingers against the glass, thinking.

“But still...”, he started, “It was chaos, he had to know that Natasha was there to take Pierce out, no other explanation logical. And then when Fury joined, it could have been a good moment to go, Natasha was distracted with the data files and Pierce. Fury was too obsessed in his rage, Nick told me so himself, he only saw Pierce. And then when Natasha took herself out? To avoid his sternum burners? There was plenty opportunity to make a run for it! So why stay? Why wait until they were gone? Why cut it so close?”, he was rambling out loud but then stopped when Steve froze mid turn, Tony stopped as well, eyes immediately shifting to Steve.

“Steve?”

“Rumlow.”, and as Steve started to talk, Clint saw the puzzle pieces falling together, “Rollins was waiting for Rumlow. When he heard that Natasha was with the council, Rumlow made a charge for the council room, that was when Maria alerted Sam.”, and Clint effortlessly took over.  
“Rumlow knew that whatever was going on would end in people dying. And he was counting on Pierce, he had to knew it was Pierce...yeah, I bet you he thought Natasha would take him out.”, Pietro send a look to Tony, who smiled at him and mouthed for him to just swallow it as Clint whirled around to face Steve, “Project Insight was a loss, he had to have realized that the second you made your speech.”

“And the whole stunt in the communication's control room with Sharon and that techie guy, that was just a means for chaos and mayhem. Rumlow didn't care about the freaking helicarriers, he didn't went up to play back up for Pierce.”, Steve went on, voice and words almost stumbling over each other with the speed at which he was talking, Tony went over to him, seemingly brimming with the need to calm him down.

“He went up because of Jack.”, Clint spit out, eyes going wide as this whole thing finally made sense, Pietro let his eyes switch back and forth between them.  
“He went up to be his back up.”, Steve added, visibly taking a deep breath when Tony placed a steady hand on the small of his back.  
“More, Rumlow wanted more. He could have had Jack's back as well if he met him on some staircase. No, Rumlow went up to pull the trigger himself if Natasha didn't finish the job. Rumlow didn't care about Insight, because he didn't believe in it. He wanted more.”, Clint started to mumble and mutter, sinking back against the windows.

“Rumlow wanted Hydra.”, Tony spoke up again, but both Steve and Clint were quick to shake their heads, Pietro was still frozen.  
“No, even he isn't that delusional. Rumlow wanted power, he was always out for it, and with Pierce out, there would be a struggle for a new leader. We know Strucker won that first round, but why?”  
“Because he had us.”, Pietro chimed into the conversation and everyone turned to face him, “Because he had Wanda and me.”, Clint and Tony both nodded, Steve started to pace again.

“Exactly.”, he agreed, raking both hands through his hair again, “Rumlow wanted Bucky. He wanted control of the asset.”, he spat the word out like the insult that it was now.  
“And he thought Pierce still had it at that point.”, Clint finished the thought and then pushed himself away from the windows, “Excuse me, I need to run down some contacts, make sure more people keep their eyes open. Wide open.”, Pietro already had the door open when Clint reached him, but Steve called him back.

“Hey, Clint, if Bucky was in trouble, you would tell me right?”, Clint immediately nodded, there was a good difference between keeping Steve out of the loop for his own mental well being and keeping things from him where he could actively help.  
“You'd be the first to know.”, he promised and then rushed out of the office, taking Pietro with him, and letting the door fall shut again.

Steve walked back to his desk and leaned his hands down upon the surface, staring hard at the files he had read before Clint had come knocking, Tony watched him.  
“So, we know that Hydra still believes Barnes to be dead. Otherwise hell would already been raining down on us, and Barnes wouldn't be traipsing around Europe with a bag full of C4.”, Tony was using his words carefully, able to notice how fast the wheels in Steve's heads were turning, “So, what are Rumlow and Rollins doing now? Looking for volunteers?”

“Friday, pull up project Alpha.”, Steve demanded and walked around his desk again, over to where the holograms appeared on the circular table, “What if they don't need volunteers, Tony. What if they already have someone to be formed into their new asset? What if they have more than just one?”, and as Tony stared at him as comprehension dawned on his mind, Steve reached into the hologram mass of folders and pulled out the missing person posters, throwing them against the wall and letting Friday zoom them out without saying a word, “What if Rumlow has three competent lethal Strike agents who previously thought they could trust him? Tony...”, and there he turned from Cap back into Steve, turning worried blue eyes to face the genius, “What if Rumlow has Strike Team Alpha?”

\--

Some days passed, Steve and Tony had left for some time to go and investigate something off base that apparently was need to know for everyone but Agent Radcliff, who herself was called away for a Shield issued mission before Clint had been able to corner her in some way to demand answers. He himself had taken Pietro out to some more contacts in Europe, but none of it had really brought any results aside from the now issued warning to keep Hydra away from the Winter Soldier without alarming them to his continued existence and the retrieval of a stack of documents from the Russians.

But once they had returned to base, tired and exhausted, Wanda had ripped them out of their hands and had told them to get some fucking rest while she shifted through them, damn girl spent too much time with Natasha these days. Clint also knew that she meant well though and instead had heaved himself up into his quarters and left a still not too tired Pietro with Sam, who promised to help with the physical therapy they had worked out for the kid.

He was only granted five minutes alone in his rooms though, for Natasha appeared in his doorway with a whole bowl of fresh cookies as he was still kicking off his boots to fall upon the couch.  
“Wanna catch up?”, she had asked and waltzed over to him, dropping down on top of him just because she could, just because they had finally managed to be in the same room and alone again after weeks of not getting five minutes for each other.

“God yes.”, he had agreed and they had done just that, munched on cookies and caught up to what they had been up to, avoided the topic of the girls as always, but didn't edge away from shop talk in any other places. Natasha might not be willing to offer her official cooperation to his secret mission project, but she still couldn't hide her curiosity. 

“So, how is the kid doing?”, she asked when Clint returned from the fridge with a beer in hand, “He seems a little better.”, she offered and Clint smiled.  
“I'm getting there, but yes, he is doing better.”, he agreed and flopped back down on the couch, Natasha shifted her legs until she laid down on his lap again.  
“Still sleeping on your couch?”, was her quick reply and Clint snorted but nodded, figures she would not not notice that little detail.

“And your little secret project? How is that going along?”, he loved her for pretending she didn't know all details herself already, what a sweetheart for asking and god how he had missed having her so close. Setting the beer down, he began to stroke his fingers through red curls.  
“Well, Wanda has only called me an idiot twice in the last two days, Pietro got successfully converted to the dark side.”, that last grinned confession got an amused groan out of Natasha, “Hey, there is now two members in the unofficial Winter Soldier fan-club, we might just make it official.”

“I will gut you if you even think about it.”, Natasha joked and snapped the cookie right out of his hands, “No, but seriously, talk to me. Steve says the two of you have barely spoken a word since our last Hydra mission, he might be starting to take it personal.”, Clint looked down at her and rolled his eyes, working right into Natasha's smirk, “But then again, he's drooling after Tony when they see each other and pouting when he isn't.”

“Oh God, don't tell me about it.”, Clint groaned and leaned back, letting his head hang over the back of the couch, grinning anyway, because this was their favorite gossip topic after all, “Tony keeps sending me messages, we're in the same fucking building now and he is writing me more than ever before. I'm starting to get terrified to look at my phone.”, Natasha was laughing as he grumbled, “Do you think Steve likes this? Is this good enough for Steve? Too blue? God, I'm co-leader, not his fucking secretary.”

“Thank god, you look terrible in a pencil skirt.”, Clint growled at her snickered words and threw himself on her, twisting them around he was straddling her on the couch, Natasha scowling up at him, not willing to free herself just now, “You also lack in the swooning department, maybe take a lesson from Radcliff, she has it down like a pro.”  
“Oh, you think you are so funny, hm?”, tickling her was not really something he let himself dare to do on a regular basis, Natasha kicked and pinched like a bitch even without using her skills and instincts, but sometimes it was worth it.

Natasha immediately squirmed away and glared at him, “No but honestly, are you avoiding Steve?”, Clint stopped his attack and blinked at her.  
“Huh? Am I what now? Are you kidding me? I'm trying to glue Pietro back together, Wanda needs me, Tony is driving me batshit crazy and Radcliff and Hill find it hilarious to send every staff complaint my way. I don't even have time to be avoiding Steve.”, and yeah, that had sounded better in his head, Natasha gave him a crooked grin and pushed herself up onto her elbows, “I'm not, okay.”

“Oh yes, you are. How many times have you hung out with him since he made you co-leader?”, and then it was his turn to scowl at her, slipping off of her and getting to his feet so he could glare down at her better.  
“He has Tony back.”, and wow, that actually sounded so childish he had to wince, Natasha swung herself up into a sitting position again.  
“Doesn't mean he wouldn't like hanging out with a friend, Clint. Is this about the Bucky thing again?”, and bullseye again, Romanov, blue eyes stared at green ones, “Just for the record I still think you are overreacting. Steve respects you and appreciates your opinions and your input, he is not trying to create himself another Sergeant Barnes, so stop hiding from him and get over your guilt complex. Barnes will come back, and you'll still be the one Steve will look to first. Things changed, change with them, Clint.”

There was nothing better than a god to honest verbal smack down from your best friend to make you realize how stupid you had been, because yes, Clint had been avoiding Steve a little ever since that personal conversation a while ago. Mostly because yes, he had been fucking busy and he had thought he should give Steve some time to catch up with Tony, and then there had also been that little unconscious episode and Pietro. And Pietro was more important than a little scratch on Steve's ego right now.

But yes, he had been avoiding Steve, avoiding him because he didn't want to just be another Bucky Barnes, he didn't want to be Cap's sidekick sniper, because he was not good enough, because he wasn't some hero. He was an idiot, a stupid idiot with too much luck on his hands, but before Natasha could have berated him on that confession it knocked on his door.

Seemed he wasn't as fixed as he thought he had been.

“Hey, guys.”, Steve poked his head into the room after Clint had called him in, “Wanna join the gang in the living room?”, and well, one on one time with your best friend was perfect, but one on one time with your best friend while gossiping non verbally about the team's antics was even better and Clint and Natasha both jumped to their feet and advanced smilingly on a quickly retreating Steve.

But not without Natasha leaning closer to him as they approached the elevator, “I'm here for you.”, and he showed his gratitude for that with an arm slung around her shoulders and a kiss pressed to her temple. Best friend ever.

\--

It was funny and also heartbreakingly annoyingly relieving for Clint to see how Steve suddenly was able to relax and put the job aside for the night, only days after Tony had returned. And in the end, it was easy to see it, wasn't it, and the fears and uncomfortable thoughts he had shared with Natasha, they all seemed so stupid so quickly. He only needed to take one long at both Avengers how they were squabbling and laughing in the corner, beers in their hands, eyes mostly set on each other despite the big show Sam and Rhodey pulled off at the pool table.

Steve wasn't looking for another Bucky.

For one, because one day Barnes would return and changed though as he might be then, Steve would still welcome him back with wide open arms as the brother he had lost. And for the second reason, of course he wasn't looking for another Bucky, simply because he had found another best friend three years ago. Only, and Clint was already quite sure in that, brothers they would never be, for that Tony Stark's heart might get in the way. If Clint wasn't horribly wrong with all the signs he had picked up on, Stark might have Pepper, but a part of him always wanted to have Steve.

\--

On the next day, news reached them about a factory attack in Hungary

“It's not funny.”, Clint knew he was pouting, like all out bottom lip stuck out and wide blue eyes round and big and yeah pouting, he was also only one little decision away from sinking to the ground and throwing the biggest temper tantrum of all times. It was not funny. Really not. It was atrocious. It was stupid. It was childish and it was so not cool.

Steve saw it different and of course he would, just like Stark, the fucking traitor, “No, no.”, Tony protested, grinning like a fool and looking way too pleased with Steve leaning on him as his body was racked with loud howling laughter, “This is fucking gold.”, standing on Clint's right, Pietro did look caught in the middle between helplessly trying to keep his own laughter at bay and horribly confused.

The source of amusement and frustration was laid out on the table between them, showing the live feed of an Hungarian news team helicopter who was flying circles over the burning remains of a former supposedly abandoned factory barrack that had in truth been masked as a Hydra facility. That alone was not the reason why Clint wanted to scream and punch and hide himself under a blanket at the same time.

No, that could be accounted to the line up of dead or seriously injured Hydra soldiers and scientists who had all been either killed or hurt with arrows. Arrows, as in shot by a bow or stabbed in the chest like arrows. Arrows, as in his thing. Arrows in Hungary when he himself had been filing paperwork and working out with Pietro in upstate New York.

You got the drift yet?

“What did you do to piss him off?”, Steve wheezed past shaking laughter and then send himself off into another fit after only taking one look at the tablet again. Clint growled, real deep in his throat.  
“I didn't do anything.”, he snapped and sounded honest to god like the petulant little child he had not wanted to appear like, next to him Pietro finally lost it.  
“You have to admit though, Katniss, that it does look like a wonderful piece of work.”, Stark smirked and flicked his fingers over the tablet to enlarge the images even more, giving Clint another perfect look of the message that had been written out in fire on the roof of the building, slightly crooked now that it had collapsed halfway but still readable.

Take that Birdie. 

Jesus, he needed a new life. And new friends, he concluded when Natasha stepped into the room, tablet in hands, took one look at him and started to honest to god cackling.  
“Well fuck you, and fuck Barnes. I don't need this.”, sniffing all dramatically Clint abandoned his post by the table and walked back over to his desk. Natasha cooed at him.  
“You shouldn't have challenged him to a sniper pissing contest via coded messages. Nice way to make contact though, point to you, but you still set yourself up for something out of your league. He is a living legend, Clint, and you've been sidelined by your own student at your last inner Shield contest.”, she reminded him with a devilish smirk.

And ouch, Tasha, really. 

Clint narrowed his eyes at her and slapped a hand to the top of his desk, sending at least two files scattering dangerously close to the edge, Natasha grinned only brighter.  
“Are you implying I'm losing my touch?”, he cut back at her and behind her Steve, Tony and Pietro all immediately stopped laughing, “Because gimme a Hydra base and I'll prove you wrong. And I will make it look less like some amateur.”, Steve and Tony laughed only louder again while Pietro smiled and Natasha smirked once more, of course she had been pulling at his strings again, “The angles are all wrong and the fletching is crooked and only half assed, and he broke like fifteen arrows. It's sloppy work is what it is.”, he mumbled under his breath, sat down behind his desk and crossed his arms over his chest, back to glorious pouting.

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is sooooooooooooooooooooooooo welcome, like seriously, the smallest Kudos or Comment would make my entire life.
> 
> Part 3 is coming tomorrow.


	10. Where One Heart Skips Another Breaks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Argh, I couldn't wait to put it up, especially because the next days will be busy and I don't want to forget concluding this chapter.
> 
> It's getting dramatic and also happy. It's just that when one person is happy, someone else might not.

Part 3:

previously:

For one, because one day Barnes would return and changed though as he might be then, Steve would still welcome him back with wide open arms as the brother he had lost. And for the second reason, of course he wasn't looking for another Bucky, simply because he had found another best friend three years ago. Only, and Clint was already quite sure in that, brothers they would never be, for that Tony Stark's heart might get in the way. If Clint wasn't horribly wrong with all the signs he had picked up on, Stark might have Pepper, but a part of him always wanted to have Steve.

\--

It was astonishingly easy to bring a superhero to his knees, to break him and crush him. You didn't need to send another alien army for it, or turn someone into weapon to be pitched against you. You didn't need to send a Strike Team to betray his trust. Sometimes words were enough. And sometimes the worst you could do to someone was break their heart.

“Okay, Jarvis, I'm in the staircase.”, Clint called out, flashlight clutched in one hands as he slammed the door shut behind himself again, “Guide me on.”, fumbling for the railing in the pitch black darkness, Clint still tried to take the stairs as quickly as possible, heart racing a mile an hour as he descended further into the Avengers Tower, counting numbers as he took the stairs five at a time.  
“Get down to the lowest floor of the labs, Agent Barton, eight more to go.”, Jarvis sounded panicked and whether or not it was pure imagination on Clint's part did nothing to ease his blind worry.

“Pietro, come in.”, he called out, stopping to look over the railing of the staircase, judging and calculating, this had been his second home for long enough, right, he knew this place inside out.  
“Angie says, she can't get into the server, it's locked. Jarvis is on his own, I'm sorry, Clint.”, Pietro sounded frantic and this was perfect, the total perfect occasion to see how much his mental cracks were already holding together.

“Okay, okay, we got this. Keep the jet in the air and cloaked. Jarvis, patch me through to Sam and keep on working on getting the tower back up.”, aiming for a second, Clint let the flashlight fly and then swung himself over the railing himself when the moving light showed him his way. Grabbing for the metal poles of the railings, he swung himself down floor for floor, “6...7...8...Sam, can you hear me?”

“Never thought I would say this, there is a lot of static, but I can understand you. I haven't gotten through to Steve or the Pentagon yet.”, Clint cursed and slipped back onto the stairs, jumping down to get to the door that led to the main corridor.  
“Keep trying.”, he ordered and wrenched the door open, “Jarvis, how is he?”, pushing past the destroyed remains of an Iron League suit, Clint slipped out his phone, using it as a flashlight now where the real one was lost.  
“Sir's vitals indicate that he has lost consciousness for the second time, it appears he is losing blood but not at an alarming rate. His breathing is undisturbed though now.”, at least some good news, “The furthest lab to your right, Agent Barton.”, Jarvis helped immediately when Clint stopped at the crossing between the side corridors.

“Dummy! Dummy, can you hear me? It's Clint, make some noise for me!”, he still felt his heart leaping right out of his throat when he saw the real amount of damage in the corridors, the broken windows of the labs, the destroyed equipment, like a tornado of total destruction. And only the pain of one person had done this. His head snapped up when he heard the distant sound of Dummy's familiar distress call, Butterfingers and You joining right in, well at least he wasn't completely alone.

“Okay, Jarvis, I got this, focus on bringing the tower back up. I need light.”, pushing a upturned tray cart to the side, Clint continued his way to the furthest lab on the corridor, glass walls destroyed just like in every other room, another Iron League suit ripped apart, some single still operating emergency lights were glimmering blue and helping him along as he took a running start and jumped over the upturned workbench to where the three bots were crowding together.

And then he saw Tony.

Passed out on the ground of his lab. Parts of the Iron Man suit covering his battered body like a broken shield, one gauntlet must have even short circuited, and Clint fell to his knees, hands frantically reaching to check Tony's pulse, he trusted Jarvis, of course he did, but he just needed the physical reassurance right now.

The physical reassurance that he wasn't too late and could still fix this two hours after Jarvis had reached out to him via phone call, after Tony had started to cut off his controls over the tower. Drunk, hurt and completely out of control. The result was before and around him now. A complete floor entirely destroyed, a tower running on emergency rate only and an AI panicked with worry and concern and unable to help.

“Okay, guys, we need the suit off.”, Dummy went to help quickly, his little claw tugging off the parts of the suit that hadn't come off in Tony's wild destruction storm, “Butterfingers, I need the first aid kit. You, make a path free to the door. Hey, Tony, can you hear me?”, pressing one hand down on the bleeding wound on the other man's waist, Clint gently slapped his other hand against Tony's cheeks, “Hey, Stark, come on, don't leave me hanging here.”

In the next second as the lights flickered on again and nearly blinded Clint for a moment, Tony's eyes began to flutter, “That's it, Tony, come on, wakey, wakey. Kinda need you around here.”, brown eyes opened but stared at him completely unseeing, blown wide, unfocused and Clint could see the expression of being completely wasted even in the dark, didn't even really need the stench of alcohol that lingered everywhere in the lab, “Oh, Tony, what have you done.”, he breathed out and accepted the first aid kit from Butterfingers, quickly turning his attention to patching up the wound on Tony's side, he must have falling into something.

“Hey, hey, buddy, stay with me.”, he called out as brown eyes dared to slip close again, sluggishly as they had tried to follow his movements, “I know somewhere in there you can hear me, even when you can't speak right now, but I want you to listen.”, he spoke slowly, “Whatever the hell happened, man, we will fix this...Pietro!”, he called into the comm line, the answering voice came quickly, “Land the jet, take the gurney and let Jarvis guide you down to sub level 4. Dummy, go and meet Pietro at the staircase door, bring him here. You, I need you to bring me water. Butterfinger, come here and put pressure on this. Gently. There you go.”, once the bot was in place, Clint moved around, shifting to Tony's other side, “Whatever happened, we'll get through this, Tony, we're a team now, remember? We do things together. We fix each other, right? It was you who told me that.”, keeping up the soothing chatter, Clint checked over every limb and every piece of Tony's body for more injuries that needed immediate attention, “You helped fixed me after New York, you found me and fixed me in Mali, how about I return the favor now. I'm gonna get you to the base now, Sam is calling Steve back from Argentina, okay? And we'll do everything we can to get through to the Pentagon to get Rhodey back as well. You're gonna be okay.”

Had it really only been five days since Tony had left for Manhattan to finalize things with Stark Industries until he settled once more into the superhero business as a main job, relocating half time to the base and half time to California where Pepper was mostly working from nowadays....Pepper...Oh god no, a very bad feeling overcame Clint in that moment and he stared up for a second at the destroyed suits and weapons for the team, the smashed picture frames...oh please don't let it be true...

“Clint?”, Pietro's voice snapped him out of his thoughts and he called back as You rolled back over with the water bottle, taking it and quickly uncapping it, he used it to wipe the blood off of Tony's temple. Soothing quietly when Tony tried to roll away but couldn't because his body refused to follow his orders.  
“Easy, Tony, I got you, it's gonna be okay. Pietro, get over here. We need to get him up and pray that Jarvis has the elevator running again until then.”, Pietro did only freeze for a short moment, but then he visibly shook the shock off and rushed over, Clint breathed in relief, as long as Pietro held it together now, he could fix whatever this had broken again later, he could do this.

“Elevators will be operational again in approximately two minutes.”, Jarvis declared as Pietro fell to his knees next to him and together with him laid out the gurney.  
“Oh, thank god...okay, on three.”, Clint said and hopped over to Tony's other side again, “One, two...three.”, and with muscles complaining they heaved Tony's still unresponding body onto the gurney, strapping him down together as well and then Clint clicked the controls to get the gurney up and on waist height.

“There we go, you're doing perfectly, Tony. Okay, let's go.”, they pushed the gurney out into the corridor again, where Dummy and Butterfingers were now busy making a path for them, chirping nervously, prompting Clint to fall to his knees one more time after they had pushed Tony into the waiting elevator, holding out a hand for Dummy to grab, Clint tried to smile soothingly, letting his voice be calmer than his racing thoughts.

“Okay, Dummy, I'm gonna take Tony to the base, he'll be back. We'll take care of him, we'll make sure he's gonna be okay. You do me a favor, all three of you.”, he added with a glance at Butterfingers and You, “Listen to Jarvis and help him where he needs help, okay? I'll keep Jarvis in the loop and he will tell you everything. Tony will be okay, I promise.”, letting go of Dummy, Clint hurried into the elevator and tried to not let Dummy's sad little chirp as the doors closed rip him in half.

“Sam, do you copy?”, he called out, one hand going out again to check for Tony's pulse on his wrist, steady, thank the heavens, his other hand went out to grab Pietro's hand, where he was standing ashen beside Tony's feet. All the time watched by half open brown eyes.  
“I'm here. What do you need?”, Sam replied calm as always and Clint let it guide himself back to stability.

“I need you to clear the Avengers floor of the medical ward and get Steve home.”

\--

Later in the night, Clint snapped awake from his uncomfortable chair nap as the body on the hospital bed started coughing, jumping to his feet he grabbed the glass of water from the table and helped Tony up so he could drink in peace. It had been seven hours since Pietro and him had arrived with a still catatonic Tony at the base, rushing him into medical where Sam and Dr.Cho got to work on flushing the alcohol out of his system and getting his cuts and slashes patched up, and somewhere in the middle Tony had passed out again.

Clint had barely left his side from that moment on, ordering Friday to communicate closely with Jarvis, sending another urgent call to Steve and accompanying Sam and Maria to the roof when it became clear that the team's undercover op made it unable to reach them at the moment, and then he had only shortly pulled a blanket over Pietro's sleeping self on the couch in the living room before going back to Tony's bedside.

Worried out of his mind was not covering in the slightest how he felt, it was not the first time Tony had lost it, but this time there was no one around to offer explanations and this time it was all the more shocking because Tony had appeared so stable, so good, so happy even. And Pepper didn't pick up her phone, and that just please couldn't mean what it seemed to mean. As much as he enjoyed the game between Steve and Tony, Clint knew that the genius loved Pepper with every nerve in his body.

“You awake?”, he asked quietly as Tony pushed his hand with the glass away again, a very hesitant slow nod followed and Clint eased him back into the pillows, putting the glass away before pulling his chair closer, “Okay, you mind telling me what happened? Because you've got your bots, your AI and your friend worried sick, Stark. And don't try to play the evading card on me, we've been through too much together for that to still work. Be honest with me, Tony. Or don't talk at all.”

“It's over.”, Tony croaked, his voice hoarse from what Clint feared had been hours of screaming, the dark haired man, not looking like confident Tony Stark at all, stared at the wall on the other side of the room, refused to meet Clint's eyes, “It's over.”, he repeated, “With Pepper, it's over. She ended it.”

Shit.

Dragging a hand down his face, Clint took a moment to breathe, worst case scenario, because none of them ever deserved a break apparently.

“I'm sorry, Tony.”, he said, and meant it, fucking meant it, because everyone had been able to see how much Tony had loved her, how crazy he had been for her, how willing he was to do everything for her, how he would have moved the world for her.  
“Can you leave me alone?”, came the question that Clint had expected then and he shook his head, schooled the despair and the worry off his face when Tony slowly turned around to look at him, looking so fucking empty and broken. Never before had Clint seen him like this, the man that had always been strength, had always been the best example for not letting anything drag him down, Tony Stark always had a plan, he could fix everything.

But maybe not his own heart.

“No, I'm not. I'm not leaving your side until Steve or Rhodey come home. You don't need to talk, not if you don't want, but I'm not leaving a friend alone when he is in pain, Tony. I can't.”

\--

Steve called in some hours later that he was on his way back, when Tony was asleep again, letting the medication work through the alcohol in his system and sobering him out. And Clint pushed himself down into the living room to check on Pietro, who was sitting with a cup of coffee on the couch, blanket still draped over him protectively.

Pietro looked as shitty as Clint felt and probably looked himself, “Do you want a coffee?”, Pietro asked quietly when Clint flopped face first onto the couch next to him, he grunted a yes, sighing when the younger man tugged the blanket around him as he went up to get the cup of coffee.

The cup that never reached his hands, for Clint was completely out by the time Pietro returned and still wrung out himself Pietro simply laid down next to the archer again and closed his eyes himself.

\--

The knock on the open door had Tony sigh and drop his face back into his hands, fingers twisting into his hair, messing it up even more.  
“Whatever it is, I'm sure it can wait til tomorrow.”, he grunted out, with way less snark and power behind it than he had wanted, he just couldn't pull through anymore.  
“Quite sure that being there for a friend can't wait til tomorrow.”, and Tony snapped his head up and around when the voice spoke up and steps entered his room before strong hands closed the door finally.

“Steve.”, and said super soldier smiled weakly and slowly walked over to where he was still sitting on the hospital bed, Tony tried to find the pity in blue eyes, tried to find the comments about him that were sure to come, but Steve kept silent. Just sat down next to him and waited, no words about how there would be someone new, how his life wasn't over just because the only person he had ever let into his heart had deemed him too broken, too distracted for a relationship.

Steve did nothing, just sat next to him, and Tony let his shoulders drop in relief, closed his eyes and then fell to the side, welcoming the arm around his shoulders that pulled him closer to Steve's side.  
“I called into the Pentagon, told them there was an emergency and the Avengers needed War Machine back, Rhodey should be here in eight hours. You're not alone, Tony, you got a whole team now.”, Steve's voice was quiet and Tony let himself fall into the warmth, “It's what friends are for, you know, giving comfort and being strong for you when you can't. You'll get through this because you're no longer alone.”

\--

Tony left for New York with Rhodey on the next day, but promised to be back before any of them could really miss him, but if Clint judged by the terrible sad puppy look in Steve's blue eyes, that had been shot to hell five minutes after he had gone, and with the majority of the team on the way back from the mission still, it had been him and Pietro who had needed to cheer Steve up.

That had been fun.

One failed attempt after the other until it had been Pietro who had worn the sad puppy look as well and together with a weary sighing Captain America that had been enough to let Clint pull the emergency break. He had pressed the two on speed dial, had shoved his phone into Steve's hands and had stuck Pietro in front of the TV with cartoons running on marathon length and had locked himself in the shooting range.

And staid there until Sam took over Steve and Wanda poked Pietro into laughing again, and he would have actually staid even longer if it hadn't been for Natasha dragging him out by his ears.

\--

Fast-forward some days and Clint was once more sitting slouched behind his office desk and longed to be in the gym with Sam and Pietro. Or out with Natasha and Wanda on stake-out duty.

“Captain Rogers has called for a team meeting, Agent Barton.”, Clint hummed in a sign that he had heard and then skipped over another page in the report before answering, “Tell him, I will be down in twenty minutes, I need to finish this now or these reports will end up in the closest fire I can find.”  
“I will let Captain Rogers know, Sir. And may I recommend the scientist's lab on Level 3, they seem quite taken with blue fire at the moment.”, that provoked a long chuckle falling from Clint's lip and eased the headache that was slowly forming behind his eyes.

“Thanks, Jarvis, I'll keep that in mind.”, he replied in total reflex and then froze at turning another page, hands frozen in midair, one holding the paper page, lip stuck between his teeth where he liked to nibble on it while thinking, blue eyes unblinking until he snapped his head upwards in the next second, “Wait...Jarvis?!”  
“Yes, Agent Barton?”, the reaction came as perfectly instantaneous a always, “How may I be of assistance to you?”

“Am I dreaming?”, it spluttered from Clint's lips while he slowly sank back into his chair and stared at the ceiling, stupid dumb habit he had picked up again because Sam and Pietro kept on doing it with Friday...and by the way, where was she...  
“All my readings indicate that is not the case, Sir. Your brain activity is...”, but Clint interrupted before Jarvis could have talked him into sleep with all this medical stuff.

“Yeah, yeah, doesn't matter right now. What the heck are you doing here? And where is Friday?...Not that I am not happy to talk to you, buddy, but some answers maybe?”, there was no brief moment of silence, so Clint felt assured that he had not managed to insult the AI again.  
“Sir has shifted Friday into the communication system of the Quinjets, Agent Barton. I will be in direct contact with her at all times to assure maximal cooperation and functionality, but as of today, Sir has given me control over the base.”, Clint was left gaping at the ceiling for a long enough moment that Jarvis apparently felt the need to address him again, “Are you alright, Agent Barton?”

“Tony is back?”, and god, he needed more sleep if he was this slow on the update, “Please don't answer that, I got it now. Wow, I need a break.”, and as the world would have it, a knock sounded on his door right then, “Jarvis, could you open the door for me? And welcome to your new job and home, buddy, I missed you.”, the door clicked open and Clint dragged a hand over his face.  
“Thank you, and as much as I can be the judge of that, I feel the same, Agent Barton.”, Clint snorted as Jarvis stopped talking and then turned to look to the open door, grinning brightly when he caught sight of his visitor.

“Dummy!”, he cheered and pushed back from the desk, “I missed you, Dummy. Been wrecking some more chaos for Tony for me?”, the bot chirped happily and rolled over to him, bumping his claw gently against Clint's fist, “How's my favorite robot doing?”, Dummy chirped some more, “What are your world domination plans doing? We can't let Tony get lazy, now, can we?”, Clint added slightly louder in the end as his ears picked up the sound of fast footsteps approaching.

“You're hilarious as always.”, Tony grumbled as he stepped into the room, hair slightly wild from his running, brown eyes immediately snapping over to Dummy who had rolled to cover behind Clint's chair, “And you are so in trouble, you bastard. You can't just run away like that.”, Dummy chirped a little sad and bumped his claw against Clint's shoulder, who reached back and petted him, “Yeah, I get, one idiot missed the other, still doesn't mean there isn't work to be done, so go back down to the workshop and start unpacking.”

Letting out a noise that sounded like a stubborn groan, Dummy rolled towards the door again, stopping in the doorway to wave at Clint who merrily waved back, despite Tony's annoyed glare, “Bye, Dummy. Hi, Tony.”, he greeted the other man and did not hide the checking look, he looked better, less maniac more usual level of neurotic, his eyes were still red shot, and underlined with heavy dark bags but at least there was more than just hopelessness in them. 

“Good day to you, too, Barton. Were you informed of the change in control?”, and Tony nodded to the darn ceiling, Clint smiled, so it was a permanent move now, nice, oh this was nice, not only because like this they could all have an eye on Tony, but also because permanent residence meant more epic bromance with feelings moments. A break-up like this wasn't easy to get over and no one suspected Tony to jump back into business as usual with the snap of his fingers, he needed his team now, and they would all make sure he got it.

“I informed Agent Barton of the changes, Sir.”, Jarvis spoke up and Tony nodded in content, “And Sir, may I inform you that Dummy seems to have gone off course again. It appears he has made the acquaintance of Sam Wilson.”, Tony closed his eyes and breathed once and then twice.  
“Thank you, J, don't let him know that I'm coming. See you in the team meeting, Merida.”, Tony said and already moved to the door.

“Hey, Tony?”, Clint called out and then waited until he had turned to look over his shoulder, “If you ever need a time out, just a day or two away from this, there is a place in Iowa, where you are always welcome.”

“Thanks, Clint.”

\--

Plan E worked.

That was what the smug part of his brain would scream at him in endless repeat in about twenty minutes, but right now Clint was gnawing his lips and pressing his fingernails into the palms of his fists to keep himself from stopping his fifth attempt of breaking through Pietro's stubbornness. 

After subtlety and all plans involving just talking had failed, Clint had reached for the tactic Phil had used on him, and later he would want to slap himself silly, because of course it would have been this strategy. They were too similar, of course all methods that had failed on Clint would also fail on Pietro.

Well, Phil hadn't been perfect at this from the start either, right? Right?!

Breaking by physical exhaustion. It had been the way Phil had found his way into Clint's head finally, after he had been stubbornly refusing to obey the rules and follow orders and just goddamn open up to his SO in the beginning at Shield. But after Phil had broken in, Clint's life had finally changed for the better, had finally had hope again.

It took another ten minutes, Pietro was a hard nut to crack, another two laps around the base grounds until Pietro suddenly feel to his knees in the grass and lowered his forehead to the ground. Two hours, he had held out two hours, one more than Clint had expected, but everyone had a breaking point, and Clint's gentle talking as they had run had finally wormed its way into Pietro's so heavily guarded head.

And then it just bubbled out of him. Then he got talking for the first time again about the thing that was pulling him apart on the inside, the one question that he hadn't asked again out loud since that night after Clint had woken up in the medical ward.

“What if...what if they don't come back?”, Pietro gasped and fought against the tears, closed his eyes, not in shame but exhaustion, when Clint crouched down behind him and pulled him more upright again, balanced his weight against his bend knees, giving Pietro a chance to catch his breath. Pale hands were shaking and Clint uncapped a bottle of water before speaking, “Pietro...”, but he interrupted, wheezed his breaths through his lungs and swallowed the sobs, Clint felt his heart yelling in protest, but his mind won over, this could very much be the needed moment.

“No, Clint, please, just gimme this one moment.”, Pietro begged and emptied the bottle Clint pressed into his hand with hurried thirsty gulps that made Clint wonder for just a short moment if he had maybe pushed too far, but then Pietro spoke again, voice already stronger, “If they don't come back and it'll always be like this? Would I have to go?”, and god, he could have cried himself, no longer when, no freaking longer when, the first time Pietro had said if.

“Would you...God, no, Pietro no, there will always be a place for you here. You are part of the team, you are, not your powers. Listen to me, come on, look at me.”, Clint waited until Pietro had looked over his shoulder at him, “If by some miracle your speed will not return, then we'll still have a place for you. I swear to you, this is your family now, and it will always be your family.”, on the inside Clint was screaming, screaming in joy and endless relief, because this was it, this was the breakthrough, he had finally gotten through, he was finally in.

Now he could help, now he could make him understand, moving and then sinking to his knees in front of him, he grabbed the younger man's face and cupped his cheeks, held him steady, hold on strong, became the rock Pietro needed more than ever.  
“But what could I do when...”, doubt, so much doubt still in his eyes, but Clint could see past it now, could see the glimmer of hope, the burning longing for a future, the need to live this life that was granted to him, to take this second chance.  
“I'll teach you how to fly the jet, I'll teach you how to shoot, gun, bow, rifle, whatever. You will not be sidelined, okay? You'll fight with us, no matter what.”, he promised, he promise and swore, trying to let his eyes burn the message straight to Pietro's heart, and the boy hung onto every word he spoke.

“And even if your powers will return tomorrow, I'll still teach you all of that. God knows, we'll need someone who can fly us out of whatever mess might occur again, and I might not always be able to take the wheel. And I'll definitely show you how to use a gun, maybe not a bow, can't have you better than me.”, that finally prompted a small smirk to flicker over Pietro's face, finally let him see that boy from the Sokovian streets again, the cocky bastard, the kid he had missed so much, “And maybe not the rifle either, if Steve and I get our ways, this team will have two more than perfect snipers in the future. There you go, now that's a smile.”, Clint offered and smiled himself, “You're one of us, Pietro. You belong with this team and we will fight with claws to keep you on it. We don't leave people behind, we fight to get them back to us.”

“Thank you.”, Pietro breathed after a moment of silence, and then sacked forward against Clint's shoulder, letting him hold him, letting him be strong for him, accepting the exhaustion and the tiredness in his bones, finally accepting the need to heal.  
“Always, kiddo, always.”, because him Clint would never fail, never again, he would never again let himself fail someone, Pietro would never have to see him fail. Lips curling into a grin Clint chuckled into white hair.

“Oh, ooh, we'll have Stark create you some of those bracelets for the shield.”, he laughed and pulled them both back to their feet, throwing an arm around Pietro's shoulders to steer him back towards the base buildings, “Hell knows Natasha will someday get sick of always being the only one picking up after Cap, and he just sees that shield of his too much of a boomerang sometimes, not as the oversized too balanced frisbee that it is.”, and by the time they reached the backdoor of the base, Pietro was laughing, tears streaming down his face again, but this time in pure joy as he clutched his stomach, Clint grinning brightly beside him.

And his subconscious was already planning the call to Laura, it was time to figure out a date for a long weekend visit that was long overdue. If the Avengers were your family, you needed to meet Super-Mom.

\--

There was a rule about running in the corridors, but despite living her life and her job perfectly after the rule book, Agent Sammy Radcliff was in a hurry and when you were in a hurry, you had to bend the book a little. So she was running along the long corridor leading from the labs to the main control room of the base, heels clicking loudly and in a quick pattern over the shining floor, the classified file Maria had demanded from her still clutched tightly in one hand, the other holding thr fresh forensic report.

And also, who would dare and write her down for freaking running in the corridors. She was a Level 9 agent now, the only ones higher than her on the foodchain now were Maria (who was in said main control room, Barton (who was outside with the Maximoff boy) and Captain Rogers, and she was convinced she could get her way out of a reprimand with him.

Sammy had been an agent basically all her life, she had been born into Shield, she had grown up on one base or another, always at her grandfather's side, always ready to step into Mum's and Dad's footsteps once she was old enough, because Grandpa's had been too big. He had been the Director of Shield before Fury after all, that wasn't something you could aspire to be, you either got lucky or not. She hadn't made Strike, it had been close, but she hadn't made the final test, so Dad's career had been unreachable, and maybe that even had been for the better side of things, after how many had been revealed as Hydra and what had been done to those who had not been.

So Mum's path it had been, and just like her she had worked hard to rise up in the ranks of Shield, had been an analyst first and then a field agent, had caught Maria Hill's attention and interest on a mission to Madripoor and become her personal assistant three minutes after stepping back onto US soil after that. And after that, she had always been exactly where Maria had been.

Helping Fury lead Shield. Down into the underground as Hydra rose from the shadows. Working in the shadows at Stark Industries, helping the Avengers. And now, fourth highest ranking agent in the New Avengers Initiative at 26, people would kill to have this job. And her life. 

By the way, her life, that would end soon as well if Maria wouldn't get this stupid file soon, Sammy grumbled on the inside, throwing herself around the next corner, she was already suspicious over the files and records Sammy had checked out of the archives for Captain Rogers and Tony Stark last week and Sammy could really do without her superiors paranoia at the moment, because....oof.

One second she was staring into shocked blue eyes and admiring the sheer strength in those abs and in the next she twisted her feet as she pulled back and crashed hard to the ground, paper flying everywhere.  
“Ow.”, she groaned out loud, refusing to open her eyes, despite sensing another body crouching down at her side, strong hands reaching under her shoulders to carefully pull her up into a sitting position.

And when her brain finally let her hear anything else but her dull inner voice yelling 'you're an idiot' to the melody of the American anthem, her ears picked up the smooth sound of a familiar voice apologizing over and over again. Well, shit, you've finally done it, Radcliff, you've ridiculed yourself in front of Captain America.

Forcing her eyes to open, she came face to face with the guilt ridden blue of America's hero extraordinaire and fought against the blankness threatening to take over, this was really not the time for ogling, get yourself together, woman. Captain Ro....Steve, she reminded herself, he told you to call him Steve, was still talking, apologizing for running her over, when it had been her to run into him...and his rock hard chest...shut up, brain.

\--

“This is really not necessary, Steve.”, Sammy said for the fifth time some minutes later as Steve shouldered the door to the medical facility open and continued to carry her down the corridor, all she could do was wonder who was more scarlet by now. He had barely stopped apologizing before scooping her up as if she weighed freaking nothing, hadn't even let her check if her foot was really in as much pain as it pretended to be.

She was an agent for crying out loud, a sprained foot did not render her incapable of walking to the infirmary. 

“It's the least I can do after not hearing you crashing around that corner.”, Steve sent her another one of those charming smile that sucked all fight right out of her, and goddammit. Pouting and with her arms crossed over her chest, because god only knew Steve had her secure in his arms, Sammy huffed and hoped that the agent Steve had handed her files to would at least get them to Maria without causing an international incident.

Five minutes later, she was sitting on a bed in one of the med rooms, a nurse gone to get bandages and crutches for her sprained ankle, and Steve ever watchful by her side. Also still apologizing, and that seriously had to end now.  
“Okay, time out, Rogers.”, she cut through his babbling and with a snap his mouth clapped shut and he looked at her with those wide blue eyes, “If you seriously continue blaming yourself for this, I am going to start screaming and then you probably have about two minutes until half the base is in this room, including Clint Barton and Tony Stark.”, that shut him up, “I didn't watch where I was going, okay? And you have more important things to do than watch out for crazy agents running blindly around corners.”

Things like, you know, saving the world, hunting down Hydra goons, searching a missing and highly likely kidnapped Strike team, leading an agency, leading the Avengers, working out in those tight shirts...or simply breathing. A breathing Captain America was way more important than whether or not she hobble on crutches for a few days, she had had worse. Steve though just looked down at his hands with that sheepish little boy look again, the one that had like half the world's population swooning for him, and Sammy bit her lips to keep from sighing.

“I should have still showed some better reflexes. Can I make it up to you somehow?”, he asked and kept on smiling and Sammy felt all stealth training, all interrogation techniques and mission experience blow out, when she shrugged and smirked playfully.  
“You could buy me dinner.”, she offered and then let her mind come to a complete freeze.

Wait...what....

She was still caught in her inner meltdown when Steve chuckled, actually fucking chuckled and leaned closer to her, “I'm free next Tuesday evening.”, he grinned at her and she could only blink and blink and blink, “Or as free as someone like me can ever be.”, had he...had he just asked her out? She wasn't stupid, and she wasn't twelve anymore, she knew what flirting looked like and Steve had done basically nothing else since they had started working together and Sammy couldn't say that she hadn't appreciated and welcome and reciprocated, but still...he was Captain America for crying out loud, and even when he wasn't, he was frigging Steve Rogers. 

Loud yelling and metallic crashes had Steve pull back again in surprise and they both looked up as the door to the medical room flew open in the most dramatic entrance anyone could have mastered. The shelf with the medical boxes full of bandages tipped over and made the biggest mess as the young man stumbled into the room and nearly face-planted into the unused IV stand. Flailing limbs reached out to all sides to balance him again and only then did wide panicked eyes find her face, hair wild and his jacket on inside out.

"You're alive!", Zack cheered after a brief moment of silence where he had stared at her and Sammy raised an eyebrow while next to her Steve was gaping. Zack didn't give her any chance to respond though because he rushed closer to her unoccupied side and immediately pushed her to lie down again, hectic hands fretting over her face and arms, "God, I thought you were dead!"

"...Zack, I was gone for an hour."

"They said Captain America had taken you out.", Zack continued completely unaware seemingly of the presence of said Captain on her other side, watching them with a mixture of confusion and shock, “Or maybe it was down?”  
"They...okay first of all, stop touching me.", Sammy growled and managed to grab his flailing hands to lock them in a hard grip, "Second of all, who is they?"

"People?", Zack stopped twitching and moving to blink down at her face, "Some guys?"  
"God in heaven, I left for an hour, Zack. I didn't even leave the building and Steve and I ran into each other and I fell. Sprained my foot, he carried me here.", her explanation was met with another bout of total silence and god man, you're not dumb, don't look like an idiot here and most of all, don't make me look stupid.

"Steve?", he repeated dumbly and then froze and snapped his head to her right, "Oh...Hello, Captain Rogers.", he tried to save what was already unsavable as he spoke more firmly and straightened his back, but their blond leader simply kept on smiling.  
"Good afternoon, Agent Calder.", Steve calmly greeted his chief analyst, who continued to stare at him with a complete mental shutdown, Sammy fought against the urge to facepalm until all eternity.

Today's order: One dead roommate please, with a cherry on top.

“Yeah, I think I'm gonna go again. You're good from here on?", Steve asked as the awkward silence became way too long and Sammy nodded, smiling up at him again.  
"Yes, I'm good. Thank you for helping me.", Steve returned the smile and then turned to leave and Sammy realized with a sudden jolt that she still hadn't given him an answer, "Steve!", she called him back when he was already in the door, at her side, Zack's eyebrows kept on rising and rising, "Next Tuesday sounds amazing.", and if possible Steve's smile brightened even more and with one last nod he disappeared into the corridor.

“What's next Tuesday?", Zack asked as she stared dumbly at the door, shocked upon her coolness.  
"Your funeral.", she answered him without looking, blinking and then dragging a hand over her face.

Wow, Radcliff, you have a date with Captain America, you better not fuck this up.

\--

For an agency that was still in its baby steps and grounded in the basement of the intelligence community, that was dealing with secrets on a daily basis, gossip still ran like wildfire. And so Steve got barely four hours of peace and inner contentment until the team descended on him like vultures at the dining table, how they had found out, he had no idea, but his happiness aloud him to smile through it all and not snat at anyone.

Having been on clean up duty for the day, Clint and Pietro were the only ones who really saw the big picture as Steve finally broke his stubborn muteness and declared that “yes, we're going out next Tuesday”. The reactions were loud and boisterous, Sam and Rhodey howled and clapped Steve's back so hard that even he had to stumble, Wanda and Natasha were up in his face in the next second, everyone had their five cents to add to the news.

Everyone but one. 

Because the one usually the loudest among them, the one always fit with at least one quick comment on his lips stood frozen by the music station. Color draining from his face as dark and still red rimmed and deeply shadowed eyes stared wide and unblinking at the happiest grin Steve had ever had. Clint tensed, every cell going on full alert when Tony's hand snapped out to grab onto the sideboard to keep himself on his feet, where his knees suddenly looked so weak.

“That's not good.”, Pietro stopped right at his elbow, eyes also set on Tony and not the merrily teasing bunch crowded around their leader.  
“Yeah, it isn't.”, was the completely unnecessary addition that Clint could come up with, willing himself to stay put, there was no sense in letting Tony know that someone had found out his secret, he would only run again and get hurt even worse. And as if Tony had heard his inner monologue, brown eyes whipped around to stare at him for a second before their resident genius turned on the spot and was gone.

“Do you want to go after him?”, Pietro whispered quietly as the others chatted around a steadily more blushing Steve, but Clint shook his head, eyes still set upon the door where Tony had disappeared behind.  
“No, let's give him some space. Jarvis will tell us if he loses control, have trust in Stark, Pietro.”, though it was spoken at the young man at his side, Clint felt as if he was ordering himself to stay put, even if everything his gut screamed at him to run, “He needs a moment now.”

\--

As the sun was setting on that day, Clint was itching to go and find feisty little Radcliff and take her for a spin with the Quinjet, where she was hanging from the open ramp for having him file his own paperwork for the pranks that had been played on the base in the last weeks. Karma is a bitch, Barton, a really nasty bitch, his brain provided him when he muttered over another sticky note complaining about incomplete action reports.

Ripping the blinding neon pink smiley off the file and muttering quiet curses under his breath he slapped the file open and threw the note into the trash. Frowning he read through the first lines and then blinked before hastily scrolling to the end of the report, unable to believe what the scientists had been up to again, and they said he was insufferable. 

A knock on his door kept him from actually going through with the imagined drop of the file into the trash bin, “Come in.”, he called out, pushing the files onto a heap at the edge of his desk, leveling them with a glare to stay put and then looked up to see the door opening, but every quickly whipped up comment over his eternal gratitude over getting an excuse to lay off the paperwork for a while got stomped into dust right in his throat when he caught sight of Tony.

“Hey....”, it left his lips in a quiet whisper almost, because if possible he looked even worse, the bags under his eyes darker than Clint had ever seen them, just crushed and beaten down and he was rushing to his feet before Tony had even stepped into the room and closed the door, “Jarvis, lock down the office and turn off recording.”, he interpreted Tony's broken face correctly because the other man sighed and reached up a trembling hand to drag over his face, “What happened?”, Clint asked and then stopped himself before he could have gotten too close to Tony, leaving him some space.

“You asked me what the reason for the break-up was.”, Tony started, his voice hoarse, together with the red rimmed eyes it showed easily how much time he must have spent crying and screaming, and god, Clint had to twist his fingers into his pants to keep from reaching out, but he had to be patient, like Rhodey had said, let him come to you, brown eyes looked up and caught his. And it was so damn hard to hold that look, because the raw pain in them, it nearly sent Clint spinning, because this was no longer Tony who had control, this was Tony Stark free falling, no plan to cling onto.

And when he spoke, when he answered the question Clint had asked him over a week ago, he was no longer the only one falling, “It's Steve.”, Clint froze, body and mind going on complete lock down while Tony stared him down, it was one thing to have a guess, it was a whole other thing to have it spoken out loud, “Pepper left me because of Steve.”

\--

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> liked it?


	11. A Mother's Healing Touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> changed some things and we now have chapter titles

previously:

And when he spoke, when he answered the question Clint had asked him over a week ago, he was no longer the only one falling, “It's Steve.”, Clint froze, body and mind going on complete lock down while Tony stared him down, it was one thing to have a guess, it was a whole other thing to have it spoken out loud, “Pepper left me because of Steve.”

\--

“Keep on eye on Steve and Tony, but don't suffocate them.”, throwing another dufflebag towards Pietro where the other man was standing on the end of the ramp of the jet, Clint then turned around and pointed a finger at Natasha, who slowly raised an eyebrow, “Don't let Tony alone for too long when he is in the workshop, same goes for Steve and the gym or his office. Drag them outside or in front of a movie, let Steve cook, drag him over to Radcliff...just have them stop thinking.”

“And you wonder why we call you Dad.”, Sam grumbled under his breath on Natasha's right and she curled her lips into a smile, when Clint looked back up from where he had thrown the last bag over to Pietro.  
“What was that?”, he asked, but only got smiling faces in return, “And don't let Vision alone with Calder again, the facility is not built for that much crazy...And on that note, don't let Tony meet Calder without Steve or Radcliff or best both of them around.”

“Clint, we're not doing this for the first time.”, Natasha reminded him soothingly, “I know how the train is running, okay? We have Steve and Tony under control, Rhodey comes back tomorrow. Radcliff keeps them from obsessing over their project too much, Sam and I have project Winter in our hands if something comes back. Go in that jet and go home or I'm calling Laura.”, Clint sighed and scowled at her for a moment, but then stepped forward to hug her and pat Sam's shoulder before turning around to walk up the ramp.

“Well, then, vacation time, kids. Pietro, get this bird in the air.”, and Pietro laughed, waved one last time to Natasha and Sam and then jogged over to cockpit, leaving Clint to push the buttons to raise up the ramp again.  
“Does Laura know we're coming?”, Wanda asked and shoved the last bag into the corner to strap them tight behind the net, Clint chuckled and walked up to the co-pilot seat, strapping himself in while Pietro did the pre-flight checks with Angie next to him.

“She will... when we stand in the door.”, he answered and the gentle prodding at his mind told him exactly what Wanda was thinking about that, so he reached back where she had strapped herself in the seat behind him and patted her knee, “She'll be too happy to be mad, trust me.”

\--

Clint was left wondering for a moment though as he stepped down the ramp if a surprise attack had truly been the best idea, but then again Laura had been used to it years ago. It had been the way he had introduced first Natasha and then later Sarah to her, and both of them had done it all over again when it had been Julie's and Tess's turn to join the family, so why should she get a warning now.

Pietro stepped up to him and let his eyes roam over the forest around them, dufflebag slung over one shoulder, Clint turned to smirk at him as Wanda shuffled out of the jet as well.  
“Ready?”, he asked and both twins clearly hesitated before nodding, so Clint kicked Pietro into motion and pushed one arm around Wanda's shoulder to pull her to his side, locking the jet with his free hand and activating the mirror panels.

And then when the jet shimmered into nature and wildlife behind them, he picked up his bag and started walking into the direction of the house, pointing Pietro to head east with a nudge of his chin, and then they were walking and Clint was busy with pushing his thoughts away from the last times he had brought someone home like this.

Wanda must have sensed that something was off, because she reached around with one arm and let it rest on his waist, leaning her head against his shoulder as they walked.  
“Is it weird? Bringing us in when it had been because of me that you had last had to bring someone here?”, and apparently she had not sensed completely right, because his thoughts had not been there, so Clint shook his head, in front of them Pietro kept on walking but he was damn sure the boy was listening in.

“I wasn't thinking about Ultron. Or Wakanda. I was thinking about...”, and if they noticed the little hitch in his voice, neither Wanda nor Pietro showed any reaction, “I was thinking about the last time I was bringing someone here, yeah, but...not because of safety reasons, but because she was part of the family.”, the hint was direct enough that they knew what he was talking about and the topic got dropped, but not before Clint could correct something in that the brunet had said, “And by the way. I'm not bringing you in, Wanda, I'm bringing you home.”

She looked up at him and smiled, beamed almost, just so downright happy and Clint felt the last remaining piece of darkness melt from his mind. He wasn't trying to fill a gap that was too big in his heart, he knew that now, they weren't here to replace the ones that had been taken from him, his family had just gotten bigger again. Pietro glanced over his shoulder back at him and they grinned at each other.

\--

Some minutes later they arrived at the house and when it was so eerily silent Clint checked the time and noted with actually some relief that Cooper and Lila were still at school, so he wouldn't risk overwhelming the twins right away. Foregoing knocking on the door, because that usually set Laura into half a panic attack, because no one in their family knocked, only strangers did that, even Steve had learned that lesson already.

“Honey, surprise, I'm home.”, he called out and stepped into the living room, only to reach back and drag Wanda and Pietro over the doorstep as well. In the kitchen the radio was playing music when he dropped his bag by the couch, and gestured for Pietro to do the same.   
“Clint?”, came the question called down the stairs and then steps sounded and Clint started grinning again, he loved to surprise Laura.

“I'm wounded that you are asking. Do I need to have a talk with Steve or...oh god, it's Tony, isn't it?”, he joked and Laura slapped him over the back of his head when she stepped around the corner from the stairs, Nate gurgling against her shoulder where she held him with her other arm.  
“You're impossible. I didn't expect you.”, she offered and then hugged him as best as they could with a baby in between, but Clint was only too eager to relieve her of that weight and snatched Nate into his own hands.

“Hey there buddy, you're still giving Mummy a hard time?”, Laura snorted and turned towards the quiet and awkwardly shifting twins behind him, while Clint caught up with the least complicated of their kids.  
“And what a surprise it is.”, Laura agreed and smiled bright and warm, welcoming when she stepped closer and embraced first Wanda and then Pietro, holding on a little more with him, before stepping back again, “It's so great to finally meet you in person. I must warn you though, the second Lila is here you will not have a quiet moment anymore. Especially you.”, she mentioned casually over her shoulder and Clint raised an eyebrow, the other eye covered by Nate's curious hand.

“What did I do this time?”, he asked incredulously, swinging Nate onto his hip to get the grabbing hand out of his face, Wanda was slowly shifting closer to him, while Laura stemmed both hands into her hips and Pietro leaned back against the couch.  
“You didn't do anything for once.”, over Laura's shoulder Clint caught Pietro's smirk and sent him a short glare, “Steve was here last week, you know.”, he did, so he nodded, “And Lila overheard us talking on the porch.”

“Oh, god, she knows I'm going after the Winter Soldier.”, Clint groaned and mentally started making plans to assure his daughter that there was no need to be scared, that Dad knew what he was doing, but Laura surprised him when she chuckled.  
“Well, wouldn't have that been the less blaming possibility. No, Lila found out the Winter Soldier is Bucky Barnes.”, and yup, Clint was dead, nice knowing you all, killed by a six year old, he always knew it would end in a stupid way.

Avenger, assassin and archer. World's top marksman, killed by his own daughter screaming into his face. Beautiful.

His grimace must have portrayed his feelings quite well, because Laura looked satisfied, “I always told you it was stupid to keep that information from her. Now, I need to start lunch or the hellcats will storm this house with hungry mouths and start gnawing on the twins.”, Pietro whipped up his head but Clint rolled his eyes and Laura flittered into the kitchen, humming the song from the radio under her breath.

“Well then, let me introduce you the Barton that will not talk your ears off the second he sees you. Nate, these are Wanda and Pietro, and you'll see lots of them now.”, the baby boy wouldn't really understand but he did look up when Wanda came to stand in front of Clint and in a move that surprised even Clint Nate immediately stuck out both chubby arms towards her.

Huh. Alright. Good.

Wanda grinned all bright and happy, when she took a giggling and kicking Nate into her arms, Clint rearranging her hands only slightly until she had him safely. Pietro edged closer then as well, more hesitant and careful, and came to stand next to Clint.  
“Can you read his mind?”, he asked his sister with curiosity in his voice and Wanda nodded, smiling down at the boy in her arms who literally stared up at her with an open mouth.

“He is happy.”, she said and Clint laughed, clamped an arm around Pietro's shoulders and spoke, “Of course he is happy, you're family.”, Pietro leaned against him and only Wanda glanced at him shortly, as if she still wasn't able to believe it, “Come on, let's get your bags up into the guest rooms before the hell-hounds come running.”, he took Nate from her again and set him down in the playpen that now housed one of those stuffed Captain America toys, complete with shield and all, and Clint raised his eyebrows at it laying face down next to the old first Bucky Bear he had made years ago.

“Steve got jealous.”, Laura called from the kitchen, having sensed him at the playpen, while Pietro was shouldering Wanda's and his bags, and she was looking at the pictures on the wall.  
“Over Bucky Bear?”, he shot back at his wife and heard her laugh echo from the walls, before she peeked around the corner of the half open kitchen.  
“No, over Iron Man.”, she said and pointed towards the action figure toy rammed awkwardly between the couch pillows. 

Clint face-palmed and waved his hands towards the stairs when both twins send him a questioning look, he was so not willing to talk about this.  
“First floor, end of the corridor.”, he announced and then pointed out the bathrooms and rooms of Lila and Nate as they walked along it, “Alright, Pietro, you're left. Wanda, you're right, but if Nate is too loud for you, we can still rearrange some things.”, they nodded and both stepped into the rooms Laura had clearly so not redecorated for them.

Really subtle, woman.

Pietro nearly dropped his bag when he saw the sheer amount of pillows and blankets on the bed and Wanda squealed when she saw the bookshelf that Clint just knew had previously not stood in that room. Clever, Laura, using Steve's need to talk with someone off base to shift some furniture around.

“I'm gonna throw myself under the shower, you're welcome to do the same, towels are enough in the bathrooms. Thanks to Stark, we don't have to worry about warm water anymore. If you still need anything, Laura is down in the kitchen.”, Wanda and Pietro called a quick understanding word over their shoulders, way too transfixed by their rooms and Clint left them for the hot shower he had so missed.

\--

When he got down again, hands still fiddling with the sleeves of his button down, he found Wanda's room empty and the shower in the bathroom between Pietro's and Lila's rooms still running, so he ventured down, still pulling up the sleeves on his button down. Wanda was sitting on a bar stool, cup of tea in her hands, chuckling at something Laura had said before he had stepped into the room and Clint froze at the kitchen counter when they both only laughed louder.

“Why do I have the feeling that I shouldn't ask.”, he mumbled and opened the fridge to find some water, Laura snickered, which was never a good sign, “Well then, glad to know you two get along.”, he grumpily admitted and turned around again, Wanda grinned and Laura smirked and god what had he done, but where he scowled at them on the outside, he internally sighed in relief, Laura would be good for Wanda, and hopefully for Pietro too.

Someone who didn't need to be kept from the truth, but who was far enough away from it all to offer the chance of being normal for once. Just them. No superheroes. Just two grown up kids.   
“So how long do you think we have until the cavalry comes crashing through those doors?”, he called over his shoulder while moving into the living room again, pushing Lucky from the couch as usually, no one but him seemed to mind the dog hogging the couch.

“Ten minutes maybe? Cooper got his grade for his science project today, might be dragging the time out.”, Clint winced and leveled Lucky with a glare when he tried to sneak onto the couch again where he had sat down to sort through the newspapers Laura had saved for him, it was always good to know what Waverly was up to. Science was a touchy subject with Cooper, he worked so hard to come up to the bars he set for himself, his boy wanted so much and sometimes crashed hard when he didn't get the grades or feedback that he had thought his work to be worth.

It also didn't help that his parents had never really had an inkling for science, Laura had brushed past it in high school with the necessary grades, her eyes set more on languages and economy, and well Clint hadn't had a school education to begin with.  
“Tony helped though. Sat down with him and explained what Cooper hadn't yet understood, even helped him built his project, without any super technology, just with what we had here. It was really endearing to watch it.”, Laura explained and together with Wanda started to set the table.

Clint snorted at the mental picture but had to agree. 

From the stairs Pietro peeked around the corner and caught his eyes easily, walking over when Clint smiled and nudged his chin towards the place on the couch next to him. Lucky, having formerly been dead asleep in their bedroom and hence not around for the twins arrival, jumped to attention now and threw himself paws first onto Pietro's lap, prompting a surprised laugh out of the boy before Pietro leaned over to scratch the retriever's head. Clint glared when Lucky glanced over but said nothing, too happy about the real smile on Pietro's face.

“Alright, now that both of you are down, I can give you the cavalry run down. Cooper will watch for a while, don't be surprised if he doesn't approach any of you for the first hours.”  
“He observes, gets that from Clint. He'll make his opinion of you first before he comes to you.”  
“Lila though, better brace yourself already. She'll jump, literally and emotionally. She's loud and hasn't figured out yet what boundaries should be.”

“The fact that she is calling a bunch of superheroes uncles should give you that picture quite well.”, Laura continued and placed the potatoes on the table, “So, if one of you gets uncomfortable, you need to tell her. Politely but honest. She needs to learn when to take a step back.”, her words were stopped when an unmistakable high voice shrieked for Momma, and in the next moment feet thundered up the porch stairs and then the door got slammed open.

“Momma, Cooper sent me ahead, he can't carry his project alone, Thommy...DAD!”, Lila Barton was a whirlwind of dark blond pigtails as she raced into the house, threw her schoolbag onto the stairs and then while talking a mile an hour, she suddenly made a detour and jumped over the back of the couch to greet her laughing father. Wanda and Pietro took it all in with slightly shocked blinking, Laura chuckled and returned to the stove.

“Dad, you're home.”, Lila pointed out and wriggled herself around Clint until she was sitting on his lap, thin arms tightly wrapped around his neck.  
“Obviously, squirt.”, Clint laughed and noticed perfectly as up close as he was when Lila spotted the person sitting next to him, Lucky having shuffled out onto the porch to search for his buddy now that the princess was home.

Lila's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open slightly, but then she blinked three times very quickly and gently slapped Clint's hands away where they had been holding onto her. And the second she was free, she catapulted herself at Pietro, who was just quick enough to make sure she didn't topple them over the couch.  
“You're Pietro.”, she called out, hugging all life out of him while Pietro held onto her completely stunned, behind them Wanda slowly approached and Nate watched the whole scenario with his usual confused face.

“Yes, he is, princess, but how about you give him a chance to breathe and greet his sister.”, Lila's small head popped up from where it had been squished against Pietro's neck upon her father's words, and quick eyes found the smiling figure of the approaching young woman. Faster than even Clint would have given her credit for, Lila scrambled off of Pietro, kneed him accidently in the chest and then flipped herself over the couch again, Clint regretted ever letting Natasha and the girls alone with his daughter as he reached to pat a grunting Pietro's back.

“Hey there, Lila.”, Wanda jumped into the offensive in greeting the hyperactive starstruck little girl dancing over to her on quick feet, pigtails flying and she even crouched down and offered her arms, a gesture Lila greedily accepted, throwing herself into the offered hug. Outside Lucky barked twice and reminded Clint of his older son and his need for an extra pair of hands.  
“I'll be right back.”, he promised Pietro, who nodded and continued to rub his chest, glancing over to where Lila was chattering a mile an hour to his sister, Clint shook his head and jogged outside.

“Okay, Lucky, race you to find Coop.”

\--

“It was so cool, Dad. She asked me if I had some help and I told her my uncle helped, but that he made sure I understood everything and I did, I could explain everything, I could answer every question.”, Clint was grinning as he carried Cooper's solar system while his son skipped backwards along the road in front of him, his excitement having Lucky run circles around them.  
“Your uncle, huh?”, he asked and Cooper scrunched up his nose, changed his steps and jumped to walk next to him again.

“Well, what do you think her reaction would have been if I had said Tony Stark helped me built it. I don't think it would have been an A then.”, and that had him grinning again, “An A, Dad! I got an A!”, he squealed, he freaking squealed, “And I get to meet two new Avengers, today is the best day ever.”, he yowled loudly and Lucky barked, jumping frantically around his best buddy, Clint laughed and breathed in the feeling of truly being home.

When they got back to the house, Lila's voice was unmistakable, going a mile an hour and Clint could only hope that it was Wanda and not Pietro she was bombarding like this. His question was answered when two hands came to his help as he struggled to get the science project safely through the front door, Cooper having bounded in ahead, yelling loudly for Laura, announcing to half the world how good this day was.

“He seems happy.”, Pietro commented as they set the universe model down on the couch table, Clint smiled and caught sight of Wanda sitting at the dinner table, Lila kneeling and talking on the chair next to her and Nate babbling along on Wanda's lap, tiny hands playing with her sleeves.

\--

By the time dinner was done and they settled over into the living room for a lazy evening, it already felt like Pietro and Wanda had always belonged into the picture, even Cooper seemed to flawlessly and effortlessly adapt to the new situation. He especially connected with Pietro and despite Lila's continued attempts, she didn't manage to get Pietro's attention away from Cooper's stories. Clint took pity on her an hour in and let himself be used as a cuddle bear slash climbing tree while Frozen played out in the background.

Laura took great joy in a time without at least one kid hanging onto her and seemed almost ecstatic with picking up her book and sitting down in the armchair in the corner, watching them every now and then but mostly focusing on her book. Mostly able to let go because Wanda was only too happy to lay down on the couch with Nate in her arms, babbling to her in one go and holding onto her fingers and showing her his toes, sticking his tongue out to mirror her.

Clint couldn't have been happier, seeing how perfect the twins fitted into the family, even easier as they had found their place in the team. And Pietro and Wanda, they both knew that they hadn't felt so much at home than on this farm in the middle of Iowa.

\--

“It's exactly what he needed.”, Wanda said quietly as she felt Laura approach from behind her, the older woman came to stand next to her at the railing of the porch and together they watched Pietro and Cooper tackle Clint to the ground, football flying in a wide arch further up the meadow, Lucky and Lila racing after it.

“What both of them needed. This weekend alone worked miracles on Pietro, and I haven't seen Clint this goofy since Shield fell.”, Laura spoke, “Well to be honest, he hasn't really been himself since New York, but this...this is him, I've missed this, and now he is back. And it's thanks to your brother and you.”, her confession was met with a quick protest, one she smiled down before Wanda could have even spoken her words out loud, “I know what you wanna say, and yes, he had the team, his friends, he had his family, but...he needed a new purpose. Shield was his life, just like we were, but while we would always be there, Shield was suddenly too much and then gone. The girls were all grown up and then gone as well. Clint is a great father, the best I could ever imagine, but he needed more.”

In the playpen by the Hollywood swing, Nate gurgled loudly and shook the Captain America plushie hard against the ground.  
“We are both very happy for what was given to us.”, Wanda confessed and then gladly accepted the arm Laura pushed around her waist, drawing her closer against a warm and protecting body, drawing her towards the comfort only a mother could really give.  
“And we are very happy to have you here. Not because of what you did for this family or because of what you did for the Avengers.”, Laura emphasized and then glanced over to find green eyes watching her, “But because of who you are, Pietro and Wanda.”

Wanda ducked her head in response, but Laura only pulled her closer, “Thank you.”, she mumbled silently and then looked up again carefully when Laura nudged her, “It's been a long time since I had this, the comfort of a family. Pietro and I, we've been on our own longer now that can remember the time with our parents, and I thought I didn't need it anymore.”, she explained and Laura leaned her head against hers, smiling knowingly.  
“It sneaks up on you, but you never lose the want to have something to fall back on, a safety net. Clint and I, we both had to grow up in foster care, we longed for it all our lives. We found it in our jobs first, with Natasha and Phil. And suddenly I was not only married, but Sarah was there.”, Laura chuckled, “And then I was not even 24 and raising a teenager, and basically called another one my husband.”

“It must have been difficult?”, Wanda guessed and both women walked over to the porch swing, sitting down on it and smiling down at Nate who babbled and showed them the squished together Captain America and Bucky Bear.   
“Quite on the contrary, it felt like the fulfillment of all my dreams. People to fuss over, all I ever wanted, all we ever wanted. A family to protect with all we got. When Cooper announced himself, Clint and I started planning to shift our home base over here without a single moment of hesitation, we both knew right then that we would always give everything to protect our loved ones. Also helped that the house here was big, because Clint kept on bringing strays home.”, Laura added with a sigh, but smiled right through it, she loved every single person her darling husband had guided home.

“How many are there now? Barton strays?”, Wanda asked and Laura blinked, cocking her head to think for a moment, but then she started laughing.  
“Honestly, I have no idea. I think I stopped counting after the third.”, she admitted and Wanda snickered right along, “But know this, sweetheart, as much as we are willing and ecstatic to give you what you need, we would never want to replace someone. You had loving parents that were ripped away from you in the most horrible way.”, Wanda nodded in response.

“Do you...do you maybe want to know about them? My parents and Sokovia? It's been a while since I got to talk about it.”, Laura nearly glowed with eagerness and Wanda blushed faintly.  
“Keep an eye on Nate, I get us some coffee and then you tell me everything you want to tell me.”, Laura said and jumped to her feet.  
“What about dinner?”, Wanda called after her as Laura already skipped towards the front door, waving a hand in a flippant gesture.  
“If Clint thinks he can rile the kids up, he can gladly cook dinner himself. I get story time now.”, Laura declared and Wanda threw her head back with laughter as the older woman vanished into the house and Nate looked between them in confusion, slapping Captain America against the ground again.

\--

Two weeks passed, and Pietro found himself opening up more and more, slow steps back into the cocky headspace he had called his own before Ultron, but he knew right from the start that he would never be that kid anymore. Too much had changed, he didn't have to do everything alone anymore, there were people now who cared about him, more than just his sister. He was part of a family who treated him as one of their own.

Lila and Cooper fought almost every evening over who got him to tuck them in while the other one got stuck with Dad – which annoyed Clint to all hells – and Wanda would have probably kept Nate sleeping in her arms forever if Laura didn't keep on reminding her to bring him to bed. It was good, a life Pietro had wanted for them after their parents had died, something safe, something stable and protected.

He also knew that it wasn't something they had to hide behind now, they had a responsibility as Avengers, and no matter how many times Pietro told Clint that he wasn't, Clint persisted on repeating himself. It was a vacation, a time-out, he hadn't been booted out, he had been benched until his head was back in the game. Nobody ever spoke about his powers, about the lack of them, not even the kids, and Pietro found that this silence was the best help he could have gotten.

No pressure, no visual reminder of superheroes and their daily awesomeness, just a loving family and a bunch of disinterested animals who only cared about whether or not he would give them the carrot in his hands anytime soon. He could think, without getting lost in his own head, and he could also not think about it.

Just like tonight, sitting outside on the porch, watching the sun slowly set and disappear behind the trees, the farm laid silent. Clint and Wanda had been called back to base for a small short mission that wouldn't keep them away for more than two days and Pietro had waved them goodbye this morning without any nervousness, he knew the team would do everything to keep each other safe. And once he was better, he would be with them, powers or not.

Nate was already asleep and Lila and Cooper had been allowed to watch TV after dinner had been cleaned up, no school tomorrow and Pietro had promised them to go into town with them first thing in the morning to get more crafting stuff. Thanksgiving wasn't that far away anymore and Lila was dead set on having presents for everyone ready, and had roped and blackmailed everyone into helping.

He loved them despite their seemingly never ending energy and the cold hands that Lila liked to press against his stomach in the morning to wake him up, and they loved him and his sister in return and liked to tell them so at every opportunity. It was surprising, they had only been here for a little over two weeks and had skyped a couple of times with the Bartons before that, but it still felt as if they had been part of it for a long time already.

The hand stroking through his hair brought Pietro out of his thoughts and though he didn't flinch, he still twitched and looked up, above him Laura stopped and looked apologetic right away, how she must have approached him from behind on bare feet, knowing exactly on which floorboards not to step to remain silent. 

“I'm sorry.”, she apologized, sitting down on the porch stairs herself, hands fiddling with the hem of her shirt, “It's a habit I've picked up I fear, Clint and Sarah always longed for physical comfort more than words, and with the kids now, it's become second nature.”  
“There is nothing to be sorry for.”, he assured her with a smile, “I like it, it...it reminds me of my mother, she used to do it all the time, fretting over my long hair.”, and he leaned closer, allowing Laura to let her fingers stroke through his hair once more, relaxing into the soothing touch.

“You've come a long way in these last weeks. You look more alive, you've healed, haven't you?”, she wanted to know and Pietro nodded, looking out over the fields around the house again, taking in the silence of the approaching night.  
“It doesn't feel like a curse anymore, not like a punishment I have to endure for what I have done.”, he confessed, “I...I see it as a second chance now, maybe not as the blessing Wanda makes it out to be, but...there is still a lot worth living for.”, he said quietly, watching the last chicken walk up into the coop.

Laura smiled and pushed an arm around his waist to pull him closer, “Someone out there wasn't ready to see a brilliant soul like yours die, may it be a god or a higher fate, whatever you want to believe in. Someone still had plans for you, to make better what has been wronged for you so far, everything was taken from you, but you still held on, Pietro, that's not weakness, that is strength, and you were rewarded with a second chance. You were given this life, because you're strong enough to live it.”

In the house Lila started yelling and Cooper screamed right back in the next second and Pietro and Laura both groaned, pushing themselves to their feet as Nate chimed into the joy from above..  
“Strong enough to survive them?”, Pietro asked with a crooked grin and Laura laughed, pushing him towards the door.  
“That's still up to discussion, the experts aren't clear on that yet.”, she explained and then waved him off to soothe Nate while she stemmed her hands against her hips and turned to demand an answer from her two monsters.

\--

Clint and Wanda returned to the farm exhausted and in his case also immensely shut off from everyone and everything, retreated back into his own head and not willing to let anyone in. Laura and the kids gave him space, and Wanda followed their example, having explained briefly to them just what Steve and Tony had found out, but Pietro didn't accept their way of handling him, even though Laura told him that it was just his usual way of coping with things.

“He'll come and talk with us, when he is ready, Piet.”, she had told him one evening two days after Clint and Wanda had gotten back, where Clint had vanished right after dinner, pale and with huge bags under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept in days. Pietro didn't take her advice though, especially because he could see how worried she was as well, because her husband who had just gotten back to being as carefree and goofy as she wanted him was suddenly pulling back again.

Pietro wouldn't have it, and maybe he would have to be as stubborn as Clint had been with him, he owed it to him, no matter how many times Clint kept reminding him that there was nothing to get even on. Steve and Tony had given him bad news, and Pietro would find out what. 

So he called Natasha, colored himself the little traitor all in good meaning and ratted Clint's moping out to her, which in turn resulted in her telling him where Clint was hiding out most of the time. An old tree-house in the forest that the kids didn't like because it was too dark. Wanda agreed to distract the kids and convinced Laura to take a long bath to relax herself.

So when Clint disappeared again after breakfast the next day, Pietro found him as expected up in the old tree-house, blinking at him with surprised blue eyes as he climbed up the ladder.  
“How...Tasha.”, Clint growled and then crossed his arms over his chest again, going back to staring out of the window.  
“Well, I figured Laura and I can't be the only ones who don't like it when you mope. And how did you tell it to me? Talking never hurts anybody?”, Clint grumbled something under his breath in response to Pietro's words, but then sighed and dragged both hands over his face, “What happened at base, Clint?”

“Steve and Tony found something. Proof that Rumlow has at least Julie and Tess.”, spoken in a quiet whisper, the pain clear in his voice, “They talked with the Ukrainian authorities, debated with them for weeks until they gave in. Handed over the security footage of the Opera House that we've been after for months already.”, Pietro was at his side immediately, laid a hand on his shoulder.  
“What did they find out?”, he asked carefully and Clint squeezed his eyes tightly shut for a moment, physically holding himself back from crying.

“It was tampered with, but Tony's new lab kid and Zach, they fixed it. Rumlow was in Odessa, on the day that the girls disappeared, and he was at the opera. Driving off in a black van with Rollins at his side, roughly two hours after the last picture of Julie and Tess is dated. He has them, Piet, the pig has them.”, Clint explained quietly, every word seemed to hurt.

“And Sarah?”, Pietro tried to fish for at least a little piece of good news, but Clint shook his head, so still nothing, “It could be good, maybe she got out.”  
“And where is she now? Why didn't she come home? No, something is wrong here, really really wrong.”, and he seemed to fall into himself, so Pietro bit back any other comment he could have made and instead tugged Clint away from the wall and then into his arms, just holding onto him, and without even knowing it, holding him together as well.

And some hours later, as the night fell around them, he found out that he wasn't the only 'Barton boy' who had been fed up with not knowing what had been going on with Dad.

\--

“Dad?”, Cooper's quiet voice still had Clint flinch in surprise, but he recovered quickly and tried to wipe the tears away, but his son must have been closer than he had thought because a small hand reached out and grabbed his wrist before he could have wiped more than one tear from his cheek, “Don't hide it, Dad. Isn't that what you always told me?”, and brown eyes looked to him, more wisdom than a boy his age should have and Clint smiled, lowered his hands and wordlessly shifted until Cooper could sit down next to him, leaning slightly against his side.

And then they sat in silence for a moment, knees drawn up to their chests, hands clasped around them, Clint with his head leaned back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling of the barn, while Cooper was obviously lost in thought, sorting through his words until he knew what to say.  
“Why aren't you in bed?”, Clint came first though and sniffed, “It's late, Coop.”, and blue eyes looked down at the serious face of his son.

“I couldn't sleep...Dad...”, and Clint waited patiently until he continued, knowing that his son chose his words carefully, waited until he knew what to say to make it count, “I know you're crying because of them.”, Cooper still took all air out of his lungs when he spoke, soft brown eyes looking up into his, “I know that Sarah, Julie and Tess aren't on a mission.”, and Clint nearly broke down all over again when he heard the slight shake in Cooper's voice, “I'm not eight anymore, Dad, I'm eleven now. I hear things, at school, Mum lets me see some of the news.”

“I know, and it's good.”, Clint croaked out, smiling shakily when Cooper moved to kneel by his side, small hands cupping his face and thumbs stroking over his wet cheeks, “I know you're old enough to understand this...I didn't lie to hurt you, Coop, I'm...”  
“I know, Dad.”, his champion admitted and Clint closed his eyes for a moment, “Are they dead?”, came the question he had dreaded the most, the quiet shy question of a little brother afraid to never see his sister and his friends again.

“I don't know.”, the sobbed racked itself through his body and Clint knew it was too late to stop, too late to pretend that this father would not be weak in front of his children, “I don't know, Coop.”, and his brave boy, his patient little perfect boy, he smiled despite the tears shimmering in his own eyes and he kept holding onto his face, kept on grounding him to the here and now, and as Clint's eyes slipped close from the burn of holding the waterfalls back, he held him through his sobs. 

And Clint only became aware of the third person in the barn when stronger and bigger hands pulled him from his uncomfortable position against the wall against a warm chest.  
“Wrap the blanket around him, won't you, Coop.”, Pietro whispered and Clint felt the warmth of a comforter being wrapped around his shoulders and back before the wriggling body of his son climbed upon his lap and wrapped strong arms around his waist, laying his head against Pietro's chest to be as close as possible.

And then Clint just let himself cry, just let himself feel the raw pain that the unknown fate of his girls, his protege and her best friends, still left inside of his chest, and he listened to Cooper shifting his question to Pietro.  
“Do you know what happened to them, Piet?”, came the quiet mumble and then Pietro sighed, a sad little one before he tightened the hold he had on them.  
“Do you remember what happened in Washington last year?”, a nod must have followed because Pietro continued on, “Your sister's team was on a mission, they were working undercover when Shield fell, and there hasn't been a sign of them since then. They are missing.”, Pietro explained and Cooper wriggled a hand between his father's and Clint held on gratefully.

“But you are looking for them, right?”, Clint felt the smile as Pietro leaned his head against his for a moment, both of them nodded.  
“Steve and Tony are, champ.”, Clint croaked out, tears slowly drying out, he opened his eyes again and then raised his own hand to wipe the tears from Cooper's face, “If there is anything that can help us find them, they will find it.”

“Is Sarah's old team...are they helping too? Sarah always said they are almost as good as her, maybe they can help...”, Cooper stopped when Pietro and Clint both winced.  
“Coop, do you remember what Momma and aunt Nat told you about Shield while you were waiting on me coming home?”, slowly testing the water, Clint straightened slightly up again, feeling his back crack.

“That some very bad people had been hiding in Shield and that they tried to hurt many people, but uncle Steve stopped them with help from aunt Nat, Maria and Sam. Aunt Nat told me that they had a very powerful man working for them who was able to hurt even uncle Steve.”, distracted for a moment with the inner debate of whether or not telling Cooper that it was Bucky Barnes who had been used to do all this, Clint needed a second until he answered, “Sarah's old team, Cooper, those men from the pictures? They were some of those bad guys, still are. They are the ones we're fighting against now.”

“Did...did Sarah know they are bad?”, Cooper certainly took this all in way better than Clint had thought he would and maybe he had been wrong in thinking that his little boy was still too young to understand this, maybe he should have given him more credit.  
“I don't know, buddy, I can't be sure, but if there was even the smallest sign of them not being who we all thought they were, then your sister would have been the first to see it. She's smart, you know that.”

“They all are. Smartest women I know, along with Momma, aunt Nat and Maria.”, Cooper admitted and grinned when Clint flicked his nose before pulling him close.  
“You need to promise me something.”, he prompted and Cooper nodded, leaning back to be able to look up at them again, “Don't tell Lila any of this. She already knows way too much, she is too young, it would only make her sad.”

“I promise, Dad.”

\--

On Sunday Cooper then decided that he had enough of the awkward non-talking about his sister and his friends and blackmailed Pietro in helping him bring up the boxes full of picture albums out of the basement and they spent the majority of the admittedly rainy day in front of the TV. Drinking cocoa, eating marshmallows and cookies, and flipping through the albums, telling stories.

There was Clint explaining how the girls came into their lives and together, how he found Sarah in Munich, how Natasha talked Julie into turning sides in Toronto and how Sarah and Julie both found Tess in Paris and then dragged her back with them. Laura dished out memories about their time in Washington, when she herself had still worked actively for Shield.

And Pietro and Wanda learned more and more about the female now former Strike team that everyone who knew them seemed to miss so so much, and even they felt a longing to meet them then, a need to have answers.

Once the new week started, it all got exchanged with positive thoughts though, for the most parts at least, because with every passing school day the anticipation rose higher. It was time for Thanksgiving, and with it Laura's conditions from months ago came back into play, and Clint had surprisingly no trouble at all to get the team together.

\--

tbc

\--


	12. Bucky and Little Stevie from Brooklyn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> could also be titled Thanksgiving Part 1 and if you remember Laura's conditions for Clint's return to the Avengers, you know what this means

\--

“Mummy, I see the jet, I see the jet!”, Lila's yell was certainly loud enough to wake even the dead from the afterlife, as it was it was definitely loud enough to have Clint upright on the bed in seconds, while Laura already rushed to the door and downstairs, hair flying behind her while he still got his bearings, but then he was quick to go downstairs as well.

“Daddy, can I go meet them, can I, can I? Please?”, Lila kept on yelling, dancing over to him where she had previously sat cross legged on a sleepily blinking Pietro on the couch.  
“You know what, just go, gives me a chance to wake up without you yelling bloody murder.”, Lila squealed and scrambled over to get her shoes and then she was off.  
“Is this my lesson in don't fall asleep on the couch?”, Pietro asked and dragged a hand over his face as he got to his feet, “Because lesson learned, so learned.”, Clint chuckled and then quickly danced out of the way as Cooper of all people went barreling down the stairs and past him through the front door, Lucky already barking up a storm as he chased him.

“Let's better get going before they fly away again. Where is your sister?”, he asked and pushed Pietro through the door onto the porch while the silver haired man was still pulling his shirt straight again.  
“In the kitchen, with Mum.”, Pietro yawned and stopped at the edge of the porch, blinking into the sunlight until his eyes had adjusted, Clint came to stand next to him and together they watched how Lila and Cooper were running through the high grass, Lucky already running ahead to the group of people coming closer.

In the distance the Quinjet vanished under the cloaking device after Tony had waved a hand over his head, just a second before he had to drop the bag he was carrying as eighty pounds crashed against his legs. The second two legged monster Clint had helped create went flying from one person to another, squealing loud enough to have birds scatter out of the surrounding trees until with one last excited yell, Lila made her choice and catapulted herself up into Steve's arms, who didn't quite manage in time to drop the bags he had been carrying.

But the thing that had Clint break out into loud laughter was Lucky who raced around legs until he took aim and jumped so hard against Natasha that he took her straight down to the ground.  
“Race you?”, Clint offered between his laughs and Pietro smirked, “Last hitting Sam's shoulder has to get Lila to bed tonight.”, they jumped down the stairs at the same time, running the second their feet touched the grass.

\--

As they reached Sam, he had just pulled Natasha to her feet again and was switching between her berating Lucky whose eyes turned so guilty that it just had to break your heart and Lila climbing Steve like a tree. Skinny knees everywhere and probably bumping into every cheekbone as she moved up to sit on his shoulders, leaning down immediately again to press her face into his hair and reach her arms down to hug his head. Steve took it with a patience of someone who had been doing this for years instead of only a few months.

Behind him Tony and Bruce had crouched down and were introducing Cooper to Rhodey, all men crouched down, listening with rapt attention when the grinning boy talked about his teacher's opinion of the latest science project.   
“That's a nice place you have here, man.”, Sam said as he turned to Clint who was more or less glaring Lucky into submission after Natasha had quickly gone over to pet him again. Behind them Vision was curiously looking around, taking everything in, Clint was curious just what Lila would think of him once she was done with Steve, if that ever happened.

Pietro, still grumbling over having lost, grabbed the bags Steve had dropped and waved it off when Steve went to protest, Lila still wriggling around him like a worm.  
“It has its charm.”, Clint agreed and gave up on Lucky, accepting the bag that Natasha slapped into his arms with an angelic smile before edging Lucky on and racing him back to the house.  
“Yes.”, Steve's voice caught their ears then, “That's Sam and Vision, pretty sure they would just love to meet you.”, he said and swung Lila to the ground, way less careful than he had been months ago with her.

Clint knew his little cat always landed on her feet. And as predicted Lila touched down with perfect grace and bounded over to Vision first, holding out her hand and grinning from one ear to another as Vision grabbed it, crouching down to get to her height.  
“Brace yourself, man.”, Clint gave one last advice to Sam before walking over to Steve and Pietro, “So, let's get going, huh, give you one last break from the little monster.”

Steve chuckled but nodded and together the three of them followed Tony, Cooper, Bruce and Rhodey down the path, leaving Lila behind to bring Sam and Vision in as well.  
“Everything running smooth?”, Clint wanted to know and Steve smirked, pushed an arm around Clint's shoulders and nodded.  
“It's going great.”, and strangely enough Steve send a look to Tony then, and Clint and Pietro exchanged a confused glance.

In the house Laura welcomed Rhodey and also Bruce again with a warm smile, pressing a curious but fussy Nate into Clint's arms and leading Tony off into the kitchen with the promise of coffee, Clint knew it was a trap. So he gladly let Natasha take over the room division and went up to get his son changed.

\--

“Clint?”, looking up from where he had been finishing up on changing Nate, Clint turned his head to the door of the nursery, where Sam was leaning against the door frame, from down the corridor you could still hear Lila trying in vain to convince Natasha to let her sleep in the bed with her instead of down on the lilo. Sleeping arrangements had been a nightmare to achieve in the last days, and Clint knew that without Laura being the logistics professional and super-Mum that she undeniably was, everyone would have ended up sleeping in the barn.

One child more, five Avengers more, the possibility that Nick could show up unannounced as always, Natasha telling him via text quite clear that consequences would follow if he dared and put her in her room with anyone who wasn't his daughter, but Lila wanted to bunk with Natasha and Wanda. Pietro and Cooper made it obvious that they were okay with sharing a room over the long weekend if they were the only ones in it and of course the added awkwardness of not being able to stuff Steve and Tony into the same room again. Clint had seen hostage rescue plans three miles behind enemy lines with no back-up, three bullets and one arrow left and fire engulfing the palace slowly that had been easier than this.

But Laura had simply swept the plan out of his fingers two days ago and had scribbled it out perfectly while braiding Wanda's hair, answering Lila's questions and keeping a steady eye on the bubbling dinner on the stove. How she still thought he was worth keeping around was beyond him. And if he spent the next hour staring at her like a lovesick and hopelessly gone teenager, he surely wasn't to blame.

So, Laura had worked her magic. Pietro had moved up into Cooper's room. Natasha had called Clint stupid in fifteen languages in ten different text messages, offering him the chance to have her teach him reading again, because her message had clearly read daughters and Clint had spent the following two hours hiding his tears over the girls again in the barn, only to realize that Natasha had meant Wanda.

Later that night Laura had jokingly asked if he had gone and gotten pregnant without telling her first, considering his continued mood swings, Clint had growled and they had gone on to practice for number four....five or six?...Eight?!....Huh....one of these Barton you should probably start counting your hawks again.

So now Natasha had opened the room she had at the farm to Lila and Wanda. Sam and Steve would share Lila's room, much to her endless delight, Rhodey, Bruce and Vision would share Wanda's four walls, as much as Vision would need a room, and Tony had been given Pietro's. Alone. Not out of favoritism, Clint just knew the man needed space sometimes and also because Rhodey had said he would rather sleep next to the baby than share a room with Mister Sudden-idea-at-three-am-lemme-get-my-tablet Stark.

“How can I help you?”, Clint snapped his thoughts back to the task at hand, swinging a once again fully dressed Nate up into his arms. Sam shifted and Clint blinked, unused to seeing nervousness in the other man, “Sam...”, he drew out the name as long as possible, “I have raised a teenager and two children already, have used the amount of patience for the next three years with Pietro. I'm not playing the poking games with the one Avenger we call sane.”, he warned and Sam exhaled a long breath.

“Do you have a minute or five? Nate can come with, just not anyone else.”, Sam got out with something that sounded like half the truth and Clint nodded, frowning, but he still followed Sam to Lila's room and closed the door behind them. Most of the others were downstairs or outside, and with Lila apparently silenced for once or at least pushed out of the house, it was almost quiet. Sam moved over to the dufflebag still sitting unpacked on top of Lila's bed, looking terribly out of place between all the stuffed animals and collected Avengers toy. 

The cot next to the desk spotted a Bucky Bear sitting patiently on top of the folded blankets next to Steve's own bag, Clint reached up a hand to drag it down his face, Lila did not take her lessons in subtlety from Laura. Sam noticed his look and smiled, hands reaching out for the zipper of his bag as Clint set Nate to the ground, “He likes it, don't worry. But how about we focus for a moment on the real one.”

And that had Clint's attention immediately, spine straightening, focus solely on Sam while Nate crawled onto his foot.

“What happened?”, he wanted to know, Sam shrugged his shoulders and reached into the open bag, shifting some shirts around before pulling out the heavy looking worn out envelope.  
“Got a call from Jarvis two days ago, said someone had left an envelope at the hidden back entrance to the tower. Hooded guy with long brown hair, kept his face hidden, no chance for him to run facial recognition, long parka, wearing gloves. Middle of the night.”, Sam explained and Clint hummed, “I took the wings and got there without telling the others, none of them have found out, though I think Natasha knows something is up but she hasn't said a word yet.”

“Something on it?”, he asked as Sam handed it over, the weight had Clint's eyebrows rise up, that had to be a lot of paper.  
“Your name.”, Sam went on, crossing his arms over his chest, “Hence why I didn't talk with the others. The Handwriting is better, but Jarvis says the analysis still shows it's Barnes.”, Nate gurgled on the ground and Sam grinned, bending down to reach for grabby hands, while Clint turned the envelope and stared at his name, “I didn't open it.”, Sam continued, Nate squishing his face with chubby little fingers, “After what he left Tony, I didn't want to intrude on something that could have been personal.”

“That's nice of you, Sam, but Barnes and I don't share a past. Aside from Natasha, and there can't be anything in here that the internet doesn't know as well. But thanks..hey, do you mind looking after Nate for a moment? I should probably put this somewhere where little curious fingers can't find it.”

\--

Clint's plan of getting away undetected with the thick envelope before anyone could see it was delayed by Nick arriving out of freaking nowhere again. The door banged open and almost everyone froze, but surprisingly enough no one actually reached for a weapon aside from Laura still holding the kitchen knife, peeking out behind Tony at the corner leading to the open kitchen.

"Now where is the bastard who decided to put Barton in charge.", Steve turned and set Lila to the ground again, she simply held out her arms towards Bruce who picked her up on autopilot.  
"You kiss your mother with that mouth, Fury?", he grinned and the man in the doorway pulled off his sunglasses, one eye glaring at the blond super soldier.  
"Very funny, Rogers. Where is Barton?", Clint snorted and skipped down the last of the stairs, Sam coming down behind him, bouncing Nate, the envelope got stashed into the first drawer he could find on his way to Nick.

"Planning how to put a bell on you. Glad you could make it, Nick, next time call ahead, why don't'cha.", but Clint was grinning and slapped a hand to Fury's back in the rough embrace they shared, most of the other gave half a wave before going back to what they had been doing, mostly bringing bags up to their room and talking to the kids, and in Pietro's case trying to pull Lucky from the couch without much success.  
"No place I'd rather be. We gotta talk later, Clint, but until then lemme greet the Bartons who actually appreciate to have me around.", Fury actually smiled and Lila grinned with all teeth visible as she jumped down from Bruce and up into his arms, Cooper coming up behind her.

Clint rolled his eyes at Laura and Natasha and then grabbed his envelope again and slipped out of the house, hoping that Natasha was giving him at least the decency of waiting for him to tell her what was going on instead of spying on him. He was proven right when he was able to reach the barn undisturbed and walked up the stairs to get to the hay storage, and right there at the southern end, he set up the hidden ladder and climbed up to the set of beams he had found as a kid.

His personal sanctuary.

Smiling at the pictures of the girls, young Barney, Bobbi and Phil, he got comfortable and cut open the envelope with a spare laying around arrowhead.   
“Alright, let's see what my present is, Barnes.”, he mumbled and then shook out the envelope, revealing a huge mess of papers, another two envelopes and files, “Yay, work.”, Clint deadpanned and glared at the stack of seemingly stolen Russian classified files, “It's Thanksgiving and you gift me work? Fuck you, Robot-Arm, I'm sending you my best contacts to give you clothes and food and a roof over your head and you sent me work? And why in Russian?”, he whined in the end but still reached out and turned the two sealed envelopes over.

One was for Steve, not so surprising actually, was about time the poor guy got more than a horribly scribbled piece of paper with one sentence on it. 

The second one though, it was not only heavier, but also drew his attention because it was addressed to Natalia. Not Natasha, Natalia. Clint blinked twice and then carefully set the envelope down on top of the one for Steve again, his heart beating in his chest a million beats an hour, or at least it felt like it. Natasha and him, they had talked about it, about the chance that Barnes might remember one day, of the link and the past he shared with her, of the influence the Soldier had been on her.

Was this a sign that he did? How else would he know about her real name? 

Not knowing that he would have his answer soon enough, Clint shook his head and cleared his mind and left the envelopes at the side to sort through the rest. There was a small note to Sam, that Clint had read halfway through before he realized its purpose, Barnes apologizing for DC, the broken wings and saying thank you for having Steve's back when he needed someone. Clint folded the paper again and slipped it into the pocket of his shirt, storing it away to give to Sam later.

And then came the stack of files. Tied together with a red string, they looked old and worn, as if someone had flipped through them often, one edge even looked burned.  
“Now, where the freaking hell did you get these and why oh why send them to me, dear Barnes.”, Clint wondered and sing-songed out loud, fingers pulling out the note addressed to Hawkeye, something that still let his heart flutter, stupid teenage crushes.

'It took a lot of willpower to give these up, and you can credit yourself with a huge amount of trustworthiness for me to send these to you. Point is, I did what I could and despite my best efforts I am only running into dead-ends now, and I could use some help. Help that I know you can give me without getting too involved in it, otherwise I would have contacted Natalia directly.

Whoever it was of you, who first came up with the idea that I was going after Hydra, well, he or she wasn't completely wrong, I did, when they came across my way, but my real hunt was meant for someone else. You know who Lukin is, who he was and what he did, he's dead now, and with him dozens of other former and current Red Room operatives. Yes, you heard correctly, current operatives.

The Red Room is alive, Barton, and we need to take them down before Hydra can knit their connections even tighter, because you'll have to agree with me, that can't be a good scenario to play out. In those files, you'll find names, coordinates and whatever else I could find out about Rumlow's tries to get the Red Room under Hydra's roof.

Whatever he is planning, Barton, we have to stop him.'

And Clint was left gaping.

\--

“Okay, what the hell has gotten into you?”, Pietro grouched, trying not to stumble over his feet as Clint kept on dragging him towards the barn by the elbow, “And is that ink on your fingers?”, still not answering the questions, Clint simply shoved Pietro into the barn, kicked the door shut again and steered him up the stairs, “You're starting to freak me out. Talk or I am screaming.”

“Just walk.”, he grunted out and nudged Pietro forward to follow him towards the other end of the barn's second floor where the ladder was still leaning against the beam, Pietro stopped next to him at the bottom of it with tense shoulders, “Judging by your stance, I guess you know what this is, so realize how you can tell absolutely no one about this. This remains between us!”  
“Of course.”, it shot from Pietro's lips immediately, face flushing with the pride of being entrusted with access to Clint's most secret hide-out.

“Then climb up, there is stuff that Barnes send me that I need to show you.”, Clint prodded and went first, simply to be able to show Pietro where he could sit down without falling off in the next second.  
“If it's another stupid bird joke, I'm giving it a pass. Only thing it got me to realize was why Steve likes hanging out with Stark so much, same level of stupid jokes and one-liners.”, Pietro grumbled and then climbed up as well and sat down where Clint gestured to, legs dangling down.

“Don't insult the Winter Soldier, you know the rules of this house.”, Clint reminded him and went to pull out the note from where he had used it as a bookmark in the thick file about the old Widow program.   
“First of all.”, Pietro easily defended himself, smirking cockily, “We're not in the house, we're in the barn. And secondly, I'm not insulting the Soldier, I'm insulting Barnes, which is probably just as stupid I realize now. Never-mind, what is that?”, he changed the topic quickly when he saw the challenging look in Clint's eyes.

“This is the reason why we are now officially pulling Natasha into project Winter.”

\--

“Sam, you got a minute?”, Clint called out as he came back from the barn with Pietro wandering off to help Laura in the kitchen, in a good repeat of what Sam had asked him a day ago, and with one raised eyebrow and much curiosity Sam nodded and followed him out of the house and onto the porch, and from there down to where Steve and Tony had already chopped enough wood again to get them through another winter, only this time much more relaxed with each other.

“Something up?”, Sam wanted to know when they were far enough away from the house to have Clint convinced that even Steve wouldn't be able to hear them, even if Lila wasn't distracting him.  
“Here.”, he said without a long preparation and handed over the small folded piece of paper, “Seems someone wants to apologize. Didn't have your name on it, so sorry, kinda opened and read it to find out what it is.”, he apologized but Sam waved it off, taking the paper and reading it silently, but Clint already knew what Barnes had written.

“Well, guy certainly knows how to write apologies.”, Sam deadpanned after he had read through it, needing only a few seconds, the message wasn't long, and Clint nodded.  
“Does it surprise you? As the best friend of Steve Rogers? After all the women stories Steve told us about him?”, Sam snorted and then let his eyes wander over the heaps of chopped wood.  
“Hey, you think, these two are okay?”, he changed the topic and Clint heaved a sigh, being reminded again of wanting to talk to Tony and the way he had chickened out already twice.

“I'm not sure.”, he admitted honestly then, Sam watched him and nodded along, “Steve is happy with Sammy, but I can see that he worries about Tony, but something must have happened between them after I left. They stopped being so awkward and distant. Do you know something?”  
“Nah, man, was like a switch got pulled over night. Went to bed with them still avoiding to look at each other and then woke up the next day and everything was back to how it had been before. Rhodey thinks they talked, but I can't really imagine that.”

“More like they both simultaneously decided to ignore all problems again, yeah, that sounds familiar.”, Clint agreed and then threw a look up to the house, “Let's hope whatever it is, they don't blow it. Tony needs Steve's support and friendship more than anything right now, and I don't want to think about how much Steve is going to need us all soon enough when Barnes comes back.”, Sam hummed in agreement and they slowly started walking back to the house.

“So you think it'll be soon?”, Sam questioned and Clint vaguely shook his head from side to side.  
“Depends on what you define soon to be. He'll come back, so much I know, he promised me, in his own weird way, but when that will be...I don't think even he knows at the moment.”

\--

"Peaceful night, peaceful house, peaceful kids and peaceful superheros.", Nick started as he quietly walked out on the porch and over to where Clint was leaning against the railing, watching the clear night sky.

"Brought them a long way, Clint.", he ended when he stopped right next to him and Clint snorted, not taking his eyes off the stars, "You wanna deny your involvement?"  
"God, no. I'm done being humble and not taking credit for what I did. They can joke all they want, I know they need me.", a quick look to his side told him that Nick was not done completely yet.  
"Yes, they do, and I'm glad you finally got the message, took you only three years. And what exactly did Rogers have to say for you to accept that new badge? I've been pushing you into getting higher on the ladder since near up to 12 years now.", he pointed out, sounding maybe a little insulted, but Clint chose to overhear that.

"And miss what good happened to me in the meantime? I was happy being a level 7, it meant I had freedom, it meant I had excuses. I was my own responsibility.", Clint argued back, “I could do stupid things because Phil covered my sorry ass. It meant Shield got intel it could have never gotten any other way, and a freaking effective amazing all female Strike team, and don't look at me. I can give myself credit for their success, maybe not all of it, but some of it.”

Silence lasted for a moment between them but it was broken when Nick reached up and grabbed Clint's shoulder, squeezing tight, "Rogers and Stark will find them.”, he said and Clint cringed, but he left the news about Rumlow's hand in it out of the conversation for now, there was a time to catch Nick up and it wasn't now, “I'm proud of you, of what you did, of what you are doing and of what you will still achieve. You've come a long, Clint, and now you're finally on top. I couldn't be prouder." 

\--

After breakfast the next day, Laura, Natasha and Wanda disappeared into town for one last grocery trip before the long weekend, taking their time on their farmer's market and Clint suspected that they wouldn't be back for even longer, for surely Natasha and Laura would take the chance of having some time without the kids to get a coffee in peace at the small local coffee shop that both of them loved so much.

Lila and Cooper had roped Pietro into showing the newbies around the farm, and were off with Rhodey, Sam and Vision the second the last dish had been packed away, and Clint was internally wondering just how exhausted those three Avengers would return, worn out by the kids' secret loved places in the woods and the need to present every last chicken. Bruce took his book and a lounge chair and made himself a nice place in the shade of an old oak tree, not far from the house, and Clint brought him a fresh cup of tea on his way to the barn, getting a nod in thanks but nothing more.

He made a note to ask Bruce to come over more often, the peace was doing good with him, and he could need a break from the hectic life of the base and the continued stress factor that was having Tony around you all day long. Back on the porch, Steve had happily taken over babywatch duty and had made himself comfortable on the porch swing with a sketchbook and his pencils and there would surely be even more pictures stuck to the vanity in Laura's closet once this weekend was over.

But with everyone preoccupied and Lucky fast asleep in the sun on the driveway, Clint had finally run out of excuses not to talk with Tony, and so he joined him in the bar. Sat down on the stairs leading up to the hay storage and absentmindedly began fletching some arrows for the dart board while he watched Tony tinker around with the tractor after he was done with his check up on the Iron League suits.

It was surprisingly Tony though who broke the silence between them before Clint could have made up his mind on how to start.  
„Alright, out with it.“, Tony called out and pushed the hood of the tractor down again, apparently done with whatever he had done to the engine again, „I can hear you thinking out loud and it's not only annoying but also really rude.“, Clint raised an eyebrow in return but set the arrows to the side.

„Fine. Are you okay?“, he turned to blunt questions and then waited out the twitching of Tony's eyes before he continued, „Because frankly, you got a lot of people quite worried with how quickly you snapped out of whatever spiral you were falling down. We were all quite worried about you, and truthfully it only got worse the better you suddenly seemed to be. Not that I am complaining, but please don't tell me you just went over to ignoring everything again.“

„I'm fine, Clint.“, Tony shot back and walked around the tractor to lean back against its side, seemingly calm and at ease, no longer twitchy and on edge and unable to hold Clint's eyes for longer than a minute, „You can call your attack dog back to heel.“  
„Are you? Really fine? And Natasha is doing what she is doing because she wants to, not because someone is telling her to. If she is hovering and asking questions, it's because she cares, not because of me. And come on, you make me swear not to tell anyone what you confessed to me, and then you pull back from everyone and everything when Steve starts dating Radcliff, and now they are going steady for weeks already and you are suddenly okay again?“, Clint pointed out and narrowed his eyes at brown ones.

„Steve and I talked.“, Tony said quietly and Clint blinked, leaning forward to take in just how exactly Tony was looking at him.  
„You did what now?“, he asked in return and Tony rolled his eyes, “You talked? That's it? Tony, you told me...”, and Tony groaned, immediately jumped onto the defense and interrupted Clint.  
“I know what I told you, I'm not stupid. And nothing about it has changed, nothing. I've just...I want him to be happy, Clint, he deserves to be happy. And Radcliff gives him that.”, Tony explained and he looked content with it, “Radcliff makes him happy, she is good for him. I'm a mess, you know how it feels. We both have baggage, we both saw too much, experienced too much and contrary to Steve, we never were able to see the good in all of it. Clint, people like us, they either get lucky or they won't.”

“You're right.”, Clint agreed, slowly getting to his feet, “People like us don't find love easily, but it doesn't mean we don't deserve it.”  
“Don't give me the you'll find someone speech, Barton.”, Tony cut in again, “I'm too old for that. Pepper wasn't the one, and I lost my chance with Steve, so maybe I won't find someone, doesn't mean I can't be happy, I get that now. I have friends, a family, a team. I'm good.”, and even though Tony held his look without difficulty, Clint could see that it was only half the truth, but he also knew not to push it, Tony had shown great trust in him, maybe it was time to let him come when he needed to.

Steve and him, they would find their way.

\--

Later that day, Clint finally let himself approach Steve about the letter.

\--

“Steve?”, the blond looked upon hearing Clint's voice and then raised an eyebrow when he caught sight of Clint biting his lips, “You got a moment?”, and when Steve nodded, Clint glanced to the right where Tony was sitting cross-legged on Lila's bed, they must have been deep in conversation.  
“I'm sure whatever it is, Tony can hear it as well.”, Steve answered and Clint internally sighed but still moved into the room and shut the door.

“You got mail.”, he didn't wait any longer to get out with the truth and walked over to Steve to hand him the envelope he had stuck the postcard in to give it as much privacy as it could have in a house like this. Steve took the envelope with confusion in his eyes and made no move at all to open it until Clint was sitting next to Tony, tense like two teenage girls waiting for their friend to see if Johnny Taylor had crossed out the yes or the no.

Finally with a sigh but probably more due to whatever look Tony was sporting, Steve ripped open the edge of the envelope that had only sported his name in a surprising neat style, considering how his other messages had so far looked like, but Clint guessed that caring for the receiver was a point in it. And this whatever it was was definitely more personal than a ripped off message stuck to a fence.

Steve started crying immediately.

It was a postcard he pulled from the envelope, and he had it turned so that Clint and Tony were only able to see the completely written backside, but not the picture on the front, but whatever picture it was, it was hitting hard. Tony lurched forward already as Steve slapped a hand over his mouth, postcard held in his other, trembling and shaking, blue eyes filled with tears just a second after getting a glimpse of the picture.

“Steve?”, Tony was a complete tense mess of nerves, kneeling quickly down in front of the blond, one hand reaching up to hover awkwardly in the air before being resolutely placed on Steve's knee, Clint was heavily regretting suddenly not to have opened the envelope before.  
“I'm okay.”, Steve sobbed out wetly, lowering his hands again as the tears fell freely down his face, Tony looked close to a panic attack by his feet, his free hand grasping Steve's shaking one, stabilizing it and with it the postcard.

Clint was still unmoving on his daughter's bed when Tony was able to take a brief look at the picture Steve was still staring at as if the whole world was showing its goodness.  
“Shit, Steve.”, the genius breathed out and Clint couldn't even blink quick enough before Tony was sitting on the cot next to his friend and had a sobbing super soldier pulled against his side, head resting on his shoulder, blue eyes still not able to look away from the postcard, but then Steve turned the card around and Clint was finally able to see as well.

And he couldn't say that he didn't feel the choking feeling in his throat as well, because no one could have expected this. Surely not them. 

It wasn't a postcard, not one of those you could buy in those tacky tourist centers. It truly was a picture, a picture someone had taken with a camera themselves and then turned into a postcard with a computer and a printer. Clint had done that himself many times over the years.

Azzano.

Even without having a close friend and daughters completely obsessed with Captain America and the Howling Commandos, you knew just what that Italian town meant for an organization like Shield, to the Avengers. He didn't need to know every single detail about Steve's past from history books to realize just what was happening here.

A small town sign with the name spelled out in the background, small beautiful old houses nestled around each other in the Italian alps, forming that secure and protected sense of camaraderie and special kind of bond that only smalltowns had. But seventy years ago things had looked different and Captain America hadn't come to Italy to eat cheese and drink wine, he had come to entertain soldiers and then left with a group of loyal men to fight against Hydra.

Azzano, the birthplace of the Howling Commandos. The time Steve had jumped from a plane to go and save his best friend from the evil clutches of Zola. Clint could only imagine what these memories had pushed up in his friend now, because it wasn't only a beautiful snap of a town idyll.

It was the shot of a metal hand holding up a Captain America toy soldier, up in the air so that it looked like it was floating over the town sign. And in its small hands, the figurine held a piece of paper with a message, and of all the things he could have written, Barnes had chosen the one thing that he knew would interest his oldest friend the most.

I remember everything.

Snapping his eyes up from where he had stared at the picture with wet eyes himself, Clint caught Tony's gaze for a moment, found the same choked up emotions mirrored back at him. Barnes remembered. It had been coming, they had known that, had known that something had awakened in the tortured soldier, but they had never dared to think about just what it would mean, if he would remember everything or just broken pieces.

“Oh god.”, Steve gasped out suddenly, eyes flying over the written greeting on the back and Tony tightened his hold on him, grasped the hand that came looking for a hold, “He remembers everything, he remembers me.”, the blond whispered quietly and then cleared his throat.  
“Steve.”, Clint stopped him and blue eyes flew up to look at him, Clint needed to brace himself for a moment, not having expected the sheer amount of raw relief and pure happiness that came crashing towards him, those blue eyes that no longer belonged to Cap or Steve, that look he had never seen on his friend before. 

This wasn't serum pumped, always strong and strategic, always wanting more Steve Rogers, this was stubborn, crazy, 5 feet nothing, 90 pounds little, always fighting Stevie from Brooklyn. This was the guy who had seen his best friend, his brother, his only remaining family fall from a train in 1942, who had accepted death with the hope to be reunited with the friend he had missed more than his heart had been able to take. 

“You don't have to read it to us. Barnes wrote you, not us, if you don't want to...”, but Steve interrupted him, prompting Tony to squeeze his hand tighter.  
“I want to.”, Steve made sure to point out and Clint couldn't help but reach for the stuffed cat on Lila's pillows, needing something to ground himself, “You both were there for me in the last months when the doubts and the guilt became too much, I want you to know.”, Clint swallowed heavily but then nodded.

Dear Stevie,  
When I left Brooklyn, you were nothing more than a pin-sized scrawny little loud-mouthed fighting cat, always too feisty and too stubborn to know when to stop, but you were good, so good, and when I saw you next, you had the body to prove it to the world. I know we never talked about it, always moved on, always looked ahead and never back, and back then it was the right decision. It was war, we were right in the middle of it and the last thing I would have needed was to keep talking about what Zola did to me. 

I still don't know if you are the right person to talk about that to, my little glimpse of your new team tells me that I should probably pick out one of them instead. What I can tell you now is that I didn't believe what I saw right in front of my eyes for a long time. You talked like him, your eyes they looked like him still, you had his memories and his thoughts, and most of all his stubborness, but everything else, that was different, and you were getting used to yourself, just as much as I tried to get used to this new version of you.

I know now how you must have felt and I hope you are starting to understand how it must have felt like for me to see you so changed and then again not at all. I'm still me, Steve. They took a lot from me, tried to hollow me out and push someone else inside, but they couldn't succeed, because deep down inside I shut it all out and protected what was most important to me, our friendship. Bucky and little Stevie from Brooklyn.

There are still gaps, still places and names I can't understand but I remember now, everything and everyone and I'm not longer fighting it. My body and my mind, they both belong to me again. I'm still not ready to come back though, but I hope that your birdbrain co-captain will be able to get this package and that you are reading this now in the knowledge that I know where to go to when I want to come home.

The words still stand, I'm with you til the end of the line, pal. Our story just got continued.  
Happy Thanksgiving, Steve,   
Your Bucky.

“Jesus.”, Tony broke the silence that had lasted after Steve had stopped reading out loud, and Clint didn't find shame in the hand that he had to wipe over his own face, “Please tell me you have liquor buried somewhere on this farm, because god we all need a drink right now.”  
“I can't get drunk.”, Steve reminded Tony softly and Tony snorted, reaching out with both arms and turning to the side to hug Steve firmly against his chest.

“Well, then I am taking your drink.”, he commented and Steve chuckled, before they broke apart again, Clint really wanted to know what had happened between them some weeks ago.   
“You okay, Steve?”, he asked and the bigger blond nodded, wiping his face with a broad hand and then tugging the postcard gently under his pillow.  
“Yeah, I'm good. I...I hope he is someplace warm and safe this weekend.”, Clint and Tony both smiled back at him and the archer hoped the same, hoped that his latest try at reaching out to the Soldier before leaving for the farm had been successful and that Barnes was driving an ex-mercenary in a Romanian village completely batshit insane, “Hey, guys, did I ever tell you about the Thanksgiving fiasco of 1939?”

It might have been a bad attempt to change the topic and give himself a chance to get his own storm of emotions under control, but Tony and Clint gladly gave Steve the chance to distract, settling back and listening to the story of a burning turkey and Bucky who had yelled himself hoarse.

\--

“Steve?”, looking up from his drawing Steve looked over to where Cooper was peeking out from around the door frame of the front door, “Can I ask you something?”  
“Of course, Coop, come here.”, and he pushed his pencils to the ground to make room on the swing, waiting until Cooper had sat down to ask, “What can I do for you?”  
“Can you promise me that you will do everything to get my sister and my friends home? And...and that even if they are dead, you will not stop until they can rest peacefully, away from those bad guys?”, lost on words for a long moment, Steve simply stared at the young boy who looked at him with his sincere deep brown eyes.

“I swear to you, Cooper, I will do everything to make sure our friends find their way home.”, he promised, debating for a second what an offered pinky promise would get in reaction but then refraining from it and simply held out his hand for a strong handshake.  
“Promise you actually, Coop,”, Tony spoke up as he stepped out of the house himself, “That the second we found them and are going out to get them, we will have Maria call your Momma and tell her to tell you.”, kneeling down in front of the porch swing, Tony held out his hand as well and Cooper shook it with a determined face, “Now, how about that tinkering around on the Iron League that I promised you?”, that way too serious face got replaced with a thick grin and Cooper nodded enthusiastically, “Well then run ahead, I'll be right behind you.”

“Nice safe.”, Steve commented as Cooper ran off, “You're good with him. Can barely believe you told me you were a disaster with kids.”, Tony chuckled and got back to his feet.  
“Well, these three are different.”, he said and watched Cooper bound off to the barn, passing by his sister who was getting a piggyback ride from Pietro towards the forest.  
“How come?”, Steve wanted to know and then settled back into the swing and picked up his sketchbook again.

“They were raised by Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff, pretty sure that gives an answer to everything.”, Tony grinned over his shoulder as he jogged down the stairs as well, Steve watched him go for a few seconds and then smiled and got back to drawing.  
“Or maybe you were lying to yourself all along. You love kids, they love you, you're just afraid to scare them away, because once more you can't see how great you are.”

\--

“Over there!”, Lila yelled and wrenched his head to the side to steer him in the right direction, Pietro winced but let himself be manhandled, keeping a hold on her legs to stop her from toppling to the side even more. Down at the river, he went to his knees and let Lila down and then sat back into the grass at the riverside, watching her bound over to the blueberry bushes.

She had shown him to her secret place two weeks ago, making her promise not to tell anyone, especially not her brother and her father who would only steal her secret stash of blueberries from the bushes she had planted completely by herself a year ago to make sure to get some if her father and brother were too quick again. Pietro had the suspicion that Laura knew what her daughter was doing, but kept silent about it in respect to her.

There weren't any berries on the bushes anymore, too late in the year, but Lila still checked over them with keen eyes and then skipped down to the river to wash her hands. She was calmer here, he had noted that right away, careful with the plants she was taking care off, among the blueberries a bunch of roses in vibrant colors and a couple of now welted buttercup flowers. They meant a lot to her and it meant a lot to him that she had offered him entry to this secret garden.

It was a peaceful place in a peaceful retreat, far away from the house that no noise really reached them, but close enough that calling for help would get an answer. The river was steady and soothing, but not deep enough that they had to fear that Lila could get hurt, the kids knew how to swim, Clint and Laura had made sure of that.

“Piet, do lily-pads grow in rivers?”, Lila called over her shoulder to him and he snorted, making her giggle as she scrubbed on her hands.  
“Why don't you ask Banner or Mum, huh? I have no ideas about flowers, sunshine.”, he told her and followed the bird hopping from stone to stone further up the little river. Lila hummed and then turned to climb up to him again.

It happened within the blink of an eye, and there was absolutely no danger and nothing would have happened aside from a wet dress, but Pietro still reacted without even blinking. One moment Lila was grinning over to him, then she was slipping, arms flailing for something to grab and in the next split second he had her in his arms.

Fuck.

Lila shook the dizziness out of her head and then gaped at him, eyes widening more and more while Pietro simply stared right back at her.  
“Oh my god.”, she then started shrieking, once again dirty hands scrambling to touch his face, “Pietro, we have to tell Daddy, we have to tell Daddy and Mummy and Uncle Steve and Wanda and Cooper!”, shrieking and wriggling to get free so she could get running, Lila didn't see the complete stunned look Pietro send to his hands still holding her and then his legs and feet, now standing on the grass and no laying on it.

“Lila, no.”, he cut through her excitement, shaking his head when she stared up at him with wide confused eyes, sighing he set her down on the ground and crouched down, “No. You have to promise me that you won't tell anyone, Lila.”  
“But...”, she protested immediately but quickly shut up again when she caught his begging look.  
“No one can know, not until I understand what is happening again. Promise me, Lila. It would only disappoint them if I can't make it happen again.”, biting her lips, Lila nodded, “Thank you. Now, back in the water, you look worse than before.”

\--

tbc

\--


	13. A Prima Ballerina and her Soldier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally meant to be much much shorter and completely planned to be a part of chapter 12, but I just loved writing specific moments so much that I just couldn't stop and not it's its own chapter. So enjoy and blame potential feels on me. I love them.

Later that day as the sun had already set and Nate was sleeping peacefully in his crib, Natasha found a good moment to steal herself away from the rest who was laughing and talking around the bonfires in the garden, Lila already drowsy in Steve's lap, and sat down on her bed behind closed doors. And two days after Clint had given her the simple white envelope, Natasha finally dared to open it.

It had been on her mind all day long, the gnawing question over what Yasha could want, over what he could write to her of all people, though the answers were quite vividly clear. Of course Clint was right, there was only one possibility, he remembered her, and the majority of this afternoon was spent wondering if she should see it as a good or a bad sign. Yasha had been her world for a long time, but even though he had never been harsh to her and she to him, there had been a lot done wrong to them, a lot of dark memories even she preferred to keep locked away.

But now her curiosity won out.

Inside the enveloped she found a neatly folded piece of paper, full with thin lines of handwriting that looked increasingly better readable than anything else they had until now gotten from him and what looked like three pictures or cards that fell out upside down, and didn't hold her interest long enough for now, so she left them on the blanket, instead taking the letter and leaning back against the headboard.

Dear Natalia,  
Alexander Lukin is dead.

And right away, she had to stop, had to catch her breath and reach out one hand to keep herself upright at the sheer amount of relief, gratitude and 'free, free, free' that crashed over her. The last person she had had a reason to be afraid of, the last dark shadow of her past, forever gone. Lukin was dead.

I know you might have reason not to believe me, so I gave the coordinates of the graves and the murder sites to Barton, he seems trustworthy in deciding what to do with it, and if I am made to regret that, you may punch me. Fact is, I killed Lukin, killed him in the same house that he used to destroy so many hopeful lives in. And he wasn't the only one, not by long, he was just the last one, because I needed to see him suffer, ripped apart by his own paranoia as the monster he created came closer and closer.

It brought relief. More probably than it should have, but at the moment I am taking everything I can get. There were more, faces and names I remember, and some from files I collected. I know that the Avengers, most of all Steve and Barton, are suspecting me to be going after Hydra, and they aren't wrong, but nowadays Hydra and the Red Room are so closely rooted into each other that you can't really tell the difference anymore. 

I didn't blow those bases to just take down Hydra, it was a not unwelcome advantage, but the real target was the Red Room. Someone needs to stop them, and it gives me focus. With Lukin dead, they'll be scattering off now, fly into the wind, they weren't loyal to Hydra's cause, just because Lukin was in the end. You are free, Natalia.

And I remember a little girl who wanted nothing more than to know what freedom tasted like. My little Natashenka...

And Natasha read on with a hammering heart, hung onto every written word, every memory he wrote down, every forgotten moment that she had thought forever lost after she had escaped Lukin's clutches. So many things she had left behind, had brought nothing into her new life but the clothes on her body and the gun in her hand, back then she hadn't really cared about it, had thought that nostalgia would only make her weak and defenseless. 

It was only when they brought Sarah back from Munich and she was faced with helping another girl with a broken childhood adjust that Natasha started regretting and hating that she couldn't remember a lot anymore, basically nothing but the painful lessons and endless hours of training. Sarah had despised where she had come from, hated every memory she had of her childhood, every proof Coulson collected for a time where she might want to look back, she never had, but at least she could have. Natasha had nothing, not even a single file that depicted that Natalia Romanova had even existed, nothing that wasn't created by Shield.

And then Cooper and Lila were born, and they spent so many evenings laughing over pictures and videos that Natasha had felt the need to have something for herself burn up even stronger, she had pushed it away of course, had told herself that she didn't need it, that the life she now had was good, that she was happy. But seeing the kids' first steps caught on camera, their gleeful little chubby faces grinning in a picture, showing a tooth gap, dancing around the living room, babbling sweet little messages that Laura sent to them on the phone when the mission turned long and exhausting, it all just made her realize more and more just what she had lost.

And after DC, after she had left, laid low, because everything she had believed in had been a lie, lies, lies, lies over lies, she hadn't even known anymore who she had been, and how could she have known. Natasha Romanov had traded in the KGB for Hydra calling themselves Shield, Natasha Romanov's life had been the one of another puppet just like Natalia's had been. And the weeks she had spent on the farm with Laura and the kids, trying to find the ground under her feet again, she had longed and longed to have something to fall back on. A picture, a memory, just something to remind her of who she had been under all these layers of lies and deceiving and masks and faked emotions.

She knew who Agent Romanov was, knew even more who the Widow was, but both of them weren't anymore what she wanted to be, had no reason to solely be them anymore. Shield had been gone and in the Avengers she could finally be herself. So she tried to find out, tried new things, tried love in a new way, all aside the special relationship she had always had with Clint and Laura. She had tried to find something just for herself, and quickly realized that it really hadn't been meant to be and now she was truly happy that Bruce and her had been able to move on and be friends again.

Love wasn't what she wanted, it wasn't what she needed. What she needed, had always needed were answers she wasn't even sure existed anymore. 

The more shocking it was when she turned the letter and read the last three passages.

They weren't mine to take, but Lukin said the file would be burned after I had memorized you, to make sure there were no records of his little girls, nothing to work back to. I hid them, would have been punished, would have taken you away from me, if they had found out, but for whatever reason, maybe it was pure luck, they never did.   
There is a old cabin in the woods north of Moscow, it was a meeting point Lukin used for my missions, I hid them under the floorboards. I didn't think I would ever get the chance to see them again, or to even remember them, but I couldn't let them destroy them. Not their beauty, not what they represented. They took your childhood, took who you were, they took everything from you, I needed to save something.  
I am sorry, Natalia, I am sorry for everything I let them do to you, sorry for everything that I couldn't stop Lukin from doing to you. I went back to the cabin after I killed Lukin, and they were still there, untouched, still as beautiful as ever. And I hope that they can help you remember who you were before Lukin took it all away, give you answers to questions you might have. And I hope that one day, we will both be able to move on, because the little girl I met all these years ago, she was a fighter. And she was braver than any men I've ever known.   
Until we meet again,  
Yasha 

The letter fell from her hands in her scrambled attempt to find the dropped pictures, because that's what they were, pictures. Pictures she turned around with shaking fingers, tears already burning in green eyes that stared down at black and white pictures, stared down at memories. Stared down at those pictures of a little girl and suddenly regained the missing puzzle piece.

Because the pictures...it was her. Her as a little girl, it was little Natalia who still believed in the good, who still had the happiness of a sheltered childhood. Academy or not, there had been happy moments, there had been good times and good memories and not everything had always been bad, and Natalia had hopes, Natalia had dreams and she had wishes.

And now Natasha had proof. 

Proof in the form of three black and white pictures. In two of them she was dancing, poised and focused while she took the steps of a trained choreography. A little girl who had wanted nothing else but dance all day long, become the best and most beautiful prima ballerina of Mother Russia, make Russia proud. 

But it was the third picture, the smallest one, the one that had been held and taken out very often, a little bend, one edge a little torn, it was this time and the thoughts that immediately came with it, the memory, that let the tears win over her inner struggle and then they were falling freely.

Because this picture, this one Yasha had made himself, and it must have been made on the last day where she had still been allowed to be Natalia, before they had taken every dream from her and made her the best Widow Russia had ever had. The last moment she had been allowed to be someone real, caught on camera forever, and that by someone who had cared more for her than anyone ever had until she had met Clint Barton.

No one had ever loved her like her Soldier had, not even Clint, the love she got from him was different.

She was sobbing, gasping through her breaths as she clutched the picture to her chest, closed her eyes and let the tears fall down her face as she let herself fall into the rush of memories that came over her now. 

\--

“Natalia?”, Yasha was calling quietly and she bit her lips to keep from giggling, pressing herself further under the table as she heard his steps enter the room, “Natalia, котенок, come out, come out.“, his footsteps stepped around the table and she fought against the urge to turn her head around to follow him, it would only make noise and he could hear everything.

And then suddenly there were hands on her waist and then she was flung up into the air and couldn't help the squeal falling from her lips when Yasha caught her with grinning lips again.  
“I got you.”, he said and she laughed and wrapped her thin arms around his neck, pressed her face against his neck and let him hold her close, he was strong and warm and he always protected her, “But you are good, Natashenka, you are very good.” 

\--

And in her room, Natasha let herself curl up on the bed, holding all three pictures close, feeling every tear take more of Natasha's pain away. Every falling tear meant one sin washed off her soul, because this child, her, this little girl had been her, she had been this girl, and this girl had been happy, had had dreams and something to fight for, she had still known what she wanted to be and who she had wanted to be.

\--

Yasha looked at her with confusion but he still took her outstretched hands and kicked off his shoes as she had asked him too, and then he simply went limp as she tugged his hands into the right places, the music already playing in the background.

“What happens now, Natalia?”, he asked, still sounding hesitant even though he was smiling when she looked up at him, rising up on her toes and reaching for his hands, he held onto them as careful as he always touched her. Not like something breakable, but like something precious.  
“Now, we dance.”, she answered and raised their joined hands to twirl around, and just like always, Yasha knew what to do in no time, and soon enough they were dancing around the room as if ballet had always been one of her Soldier's talents.

\--

Stuck in her memories as she was, still openly crying and hiccuping through her sobs, Natasha didn't even realize really how the door must have opened and only became aware of the other person in the room when rough warm hands reached under her knees and around her shoulders to pick her up and turn her around until she was curled up against a strong chest.  
“What happened, Tasha?”, Clint's soothing voice was close to her ears, arms tight around her, and Natasha tried to put it into words as she pressed closer, but her tongue felt like lead, so she searched blindly around the blankets until she found the letter and then held it out for him, still holding the pictures close.

Clint took the letter and started reading, one hand stroking soothingly over her back, but she knew exactly when he reached the most important part, because he gasped quietly and then strong arms were holding onto her again.  
“Oh, my Tasha, my beautiful Tasha.”, he murmured close by her ear and then pressed a quick kiss to her head, “Can I see them?”, she carefully held out the three pictures, showing them to him without handing them over.

Clint chuckled, smiled against her temple, one hand reaching down to stroke over her knuckles, fingertips gently touching the face of the young girl on the smallest picture.  
“He went to great lengths to protect you.”, he whispered and Natasha nodded, tears still slowly falling over her face, both of them looking at the pictures, “My little ballerina.”, a wet laugh pealed past her lips and Natasha closed her eyes again, leaned her head back against his chest and listened to his heart, steady and calm.

“You're okay?”, he asked after a long pause, and Natasha nodded after a moment, “Listen, Nat, I knew about the Red Room for two days already, the folder Barnes had for me, it's filled to the brink with new information and coordinates. I just...I didn't want to talk to you until you read the letter, I didn't know what could have been in it and I needed you to go into this without any prejudices.”, she shut his nervous mumbling up with a hand pressed over his mouth and Clint switched to kissing her fingertips.

“It's okay, Clint, I understand. It was good to hear about it like this.”, they both turned to listen as heavy but still careful steps came up the stairs and they looked at each other after a short moment, “Steve.”, they echoed each others' thoughts and Natasha reached up to wipe a hand over her face, but made no move to slip out of the protective hold Clint had on her. Steve was a friend, a good friend, she had no reason to pretend anything with him, so when it knocked on her door, she called him in and leaned back against Clint again.

Steve opened the door slowly and then peaked around it, “Everything alright?”, he asked with a small smile and Natasha could feel Clint nod, before she even caught blue eyes.  
“I'm alright, Steve...Do...do you wanna see what Barnes send me?”, if she surprised Clint with the question, he didn't let it show as Steve smiled brighter and closed the door behind himself on his way over to the bed where he sat down on the edge.

\--

“Hey, how about Sam and I take Lila tonight? Wanda won't bother you but the little one is all riled up again and...it's an offer?”, Steve asked after they had gone over the pictures together and Natasha had gone over to stand by the window, watching their laughing friends again, Lila dancing around and inbetween them.  
“I think that's a great offer.”, Clint answered before she could have, “She'll be thrilled, and you can use one night without small feet kicking you around the bed.”, he challenged and Natasha snorted but nodded in defeat.

She loved Lila, loved all of Clint's more than her own life, would give everything and everyone to protect them from harm, but she also loved undisturbed sleep without ice cold feet being pressed against her stomach in the middle of the night.

“Sam will love it, keeps on gloating that she is calling him her favorite Avenger.”, Steve chuckled and Natasha and Clint snorted at the same time, her throwing a look down at the bonfire where Lila was running around with both her arms stretched out wide, miming wings for sure.  
“It's a plot. I hope you are aware of that.”, Clint deadpanned at Steve, both still sitting on the bed and Steve grinned when Natasha looked his way again, “She has been calling everyone that at some point already probably. Yesterday it was Pietro because he took over the chicken duty again, the day before that it was Nat because she let her sleep in the bed with her.”

“Soon enough she will have everyone wrapped around her little finger, and then her real ploy for the secret take over of the Avengers Initiative will start. She is playing us, wants to take over the world, make herself queen.”, Natasha continued with a bright smile, on the bed Steve was already laughing while Clint looked as serious as he could still.  
“And then we'll be forced to kneel all day, wear fluffy sweaters and attend tea parties twice a day, no one will ever be allowed to eat anything else but candy and potatoes anymore. From Avengers to sheer peasant servants, sworn to honor their King and Queen, and Princesses for the rest of their lives in their new pink glittery uniforms.”, Natasha grinned and leaned against the window while Steve scrunched up his nose.

“So, Daddy is still the true hero?”, he questioned then, rolling his head to the side to glance over to Clint who cracked up so hard that he fell to the side and had to press hand to his chest, over at the window Natasha snorted and then walked back to sit down next to Steve.  
“Daddy is a hero, but he isn't the true one.”, she spoke up, “Her favorite Avenger isn't an Avenger yet even, though he would be if he could get his ass out of hiding.”, Steve's head snapped around so quickly that something cracked and Clint was laughing harder.

“What?”, he wanted to know and slapped a hand gently against Clint's back to get him to get it together long enough to talk, because Natasha only grinned, collecting the pictures and the letter and putting them in the envelope again, “Come on, you idiot, breathe. Bucky, seriously?”  
“Of course, have you ever taken a look at those comics, Steve? Every kid wanted to be Bucky, Captain America's teen sidekick. Do you think this house is overflowing with Bucky bears because I need something to cuddle in the night?”, Clint grinned and Steve rolled his eyes.

“I have one, too.”, Natasha admitted cheekily and Steve raised one eyebrow, “What? It's like a Barton women thing, all head over heels for Bucky Barnes.”  
“Alright, great.”, Steve said and stood up again, leaving them to snicker on the bed, “Maybe this means I can get Lila to sleep tonight if I tell her some stories.”, Clint and Natasha exchanged a look and Steve must have chosen to ignore it, instead moving to the door again.  
“Steve!”, Clint called out when Steve was already standing in the open doorway, blue eyes looked back at him, “Can you send Laura up? And have someone make sure that Pietro and Cooper are actually going to bed at some point? And don't let Lila get away with everything, she...”

“Clint, I got it, stop worrying for one night.”, Steve interrupted him and then left before anyone could have said another word, Natasha rolled to face her best friend and stuck out a tongue at his slightly annoyed look.  
“So...”, he exchanged it for a smirk soon enough, “Seems like the night belongs to us, no kids, no big kids and no bad guys for a change.”, Clint drawled and let his smirk widen when Natasha's eyes seemingly darkened, the happy breakdown forgotten almost, the tears over retrieved memories and dreams dried.

Now it was time to celebrate.

Getting back on his feet, Clint grinned and reached out with both hands, curling them under Natasha's knees and shoulders and picking her up with a playful groan that had green eyes narrowing in a silent threat. From downstairs quick steps hurried up the stairs and Natasha closed her eyes and turned her head to nuzzle her face against the side of Clint's neck as he walked into the corridor and towards the second staircase that led up to the master bedroom and Coop's cave.

When they reached the bedroom, Natasha opened her eyes again and caught sight of Laura pulling off her sweater, their eyes met and Natasha mirrored the grin on the face of the older woman, and then without taking her eyes off of Laura, she turned her face to the right and bit down on Clint's neck, causing him to stumble and crash them down onto the bed. Laura laughed and rushed forward, kicking the door shut as she went.

\--

Some hours later, in the middle of the night, Clint was more or less tiptoeing his way down the stairs again, an old plaid shirt thrown over his naked chest for appearances sake more than anything else, barefoot, having left two entangled half dressed women behind under the blankets. He was up to get some water and to make a check around the house, an old habit he had never really managed to lose, not even when the house was filled with more superheroes than civilians. Natasha, Tony and Nick alone were paranoid enough to power a whole city through an espionage war, Rhodey and Sam had enough ambush experience that it was highly unlikely they would ever sleep through one ever again.

And they had not only a true supersoldier in the house now, but also two enhanced superhumans and an AI who never slept, not even speaking of the robot army Tony kept stored in the barn for “safekeeping”. As if anyone would ever be able to hurt his family. But still, his head was sometimes just not able to shut up unless he took the perimeter walk and checked in on his people.

Pietro and Cooper had both been fast asleep in the younger one's bed, limbs everywhere, slightly snoring, just like Clint knew it from them. One floor down, Tony was drooling over his tablet, prompting Clint to not only roll his eyes but also lean down to tug the blanket higher over him and gently extract the still glowing tablet from his hands in the dark room.  
“Do I need to do anything to keep something from being lost, Jarvis?”, he whispered and got a negative answer in form of a message on the tablet, “Then goodnight buddy and happy Thanksgiving.”, his words got repeated on the tablet and Clint smiled as he turned the tablet off, putting it on the desk before closing the door quietly.

In Lila's room, he had to bite back a snicker upon the sight, Steve was passed out on the cot, laying on his stomach, one arm dangling to the ground and the other one clutching Bucky Bear and a story book to his side. It took a whole lot of effort to not take more than one quick picture with the phone he had stuck under the waistband of his boxers, intending to place it down into the kitchen to keep Natasha from checking for the news sides for one night and morning. On the bed, Sam was snoring into the fluffy stomach of the black cat Lila had gotten from Sarah and Julie years ago, Lila sprawled across his stomach and chest like a leech, hair a mess.

Wanda had taken advantage of the empty big bed and was sleeping peacefully and with a smile on her face, and he didn't stay long. Just like he did with Rhodey and Bruce, who slept steady, no sight of Vision but that was hardly any reason for concern. In the nursery, the damn floorboard by the door creaked and in the crib Nate popped open his eyes and stared so accusingly at Clint that he stared right back for a moment before sighing and stepping over to pick him up.  
“I'll fix it, I promise.”, he mumbled into the soft fuss on his son's head who snuggled close but made no move to fall asleep again, “Decided to be hungry?”, Clint guessed and then walked back into the corridor.

Downstairs Nick didn't even pretend to be asleep when Clint turned around the corner into the kitchen, sitting at the dining table, cup of what smelled like hot cocoa in his hands, he looked up when Nate babbled upon seeing him. Without saying a word, Nick reached out and Clint gave Nate over to him before walking over to the counter to heat up one of the milk bottles.   
“Everything alright?”, Nick asked when Clint handed him the bottle and then sat down across from him, watching how Nick shifted Nate without even focusing on it anymore and then held up the bottle until Nate had it perfectly in his hands.

“Yeah.”, Clint answered after a moment, “I think it is. Steve says Tony got a lead on what could have happened to the girls, they are flying out to Moscow in three days. And hey, you're not going to shoot Barnes on sight when he comes back, right?”, Nick rolled his one good eye upon Clint's stupid joke.  
“You know.”, Nick started up again after a long pause, Nate had gone over to gnaw on the bottle sucker instead of drinking from it, and Clint looked up again, “Phil would be proud if he could see you now. You've filled a void in the Initiative that he left behind without losing who you really are. He would like it if he could see who you have become, I know that I do.”, Clint ducked his head down and reached up a hand to scratch at his neck.

“I miss him.”, he confessed quietly after a short moment, “There isn't a day where I don't think about him at least once. I still need him, still think about what he would say if he could see me now, how he...what he would think about losing the girls and not being able to find them.”  
“You know it's one of the regrets that is keeping me up at night as well. I know that I am to blame.”, Nick waved away the comment Clint wanted to make against that, “We both know that some of it is my fault. I didn't see what was going on, not early enough, and then I couldn't act fast enough. I should have trusted more people than just myself and Maria, should have known who was on my side. Should have believed that Natasha and you wouldn't be needed to be blinded from the possible truth, that it could have been easier with you two along the plot. I know that I should have warned Rogers and Stark that something was fishy, and I regret not doing it. I can't change what happened but I do feel guilty to where it brought us.”

“I would have never thought Rumlow to be capable of it, being a double agent, working for Hydra.”, Clint confessed, narrowing his eyes a little at the table, “He was extreme, you know, but tell me one Strike agent who wasn't a little quirky and intense, comes with the job descriptions, doesn't it? He was just so damn loyal, even at the point where he hated Sarah, hated all the girls with every nerve in his body, he still had their backs, still would have jumped in front of every bullet meant for them. And Rollins? Jesus Christ, Natasha called him cupcake up until DC. Everybody loved Jack, even you did.”

“A wolf in a sheep's clothing. We were all misled, Clint.”, to that Clint could only nod, and Nick continued on, “What you can do now, and what Rogers and you have already been doing is learn from my mistakes and make it better. What you did for the Maximoff kid, it showed me a lot that you learned from the right person at Shield, even after everything that happened you're still Coulson's boy. And that makes me rest easy, knowing that the NAI is in good hands.”, Clint smiled and fully ignored how his ears turned red.

“I didn't do anything for him, I just...had him realize that he wasn't alone in this, the fighting through he is doing all on his own.”, he defended Pietro's strength though and then caught the rare smile on Nick's face as the older man set the half empty bottle upon the table, Nate already falling asleep in his arms.  
“Funny how history repeats itself sometimes.”, Nick said and got to his feet, walking around the table, squeezing Clint's shoulder as he stopped next to him, “Because close to two decades ago, someone spoke those words to me for the first time. And it did not only give me one of the best damn agents I ever had, but one of the best friends as well.”, and Clint looked up and caught Nick's eye for a moment before the older man let go and walked towards the stairs to get Nate back into bed.

\--

Clint walked outside onto the porch for some minutes of fresh air then, resting against the railing and watching the stars twinkle on a spotless clear night sky, enjoying the lack of anxiety the view brought over him now. It had been different, in the first weeks after New York he had barely been able to see the sky, the stars or even the smallest picture of space without choking on a panic attack, thinking about Loki and what had happened.

Years of experience had him raise one arm a minute later before Pietro had even fully stepped out of the house and onto the porch, and he curled his lips into a smile when there was the annoyed sigh of a sneak attack gone wrong again.  
“You didn't see that coming, huh?”, Clint snickered as Pietro stepped to his side and let himself shift to lean against his side, Clint's arm falling around his shoulders, drawing him even closer.  
“Oh, shut up.”, Pietro pouted and grumbled, making Clint chuckle only louder, “And before you ask, I'm only up because Coop is dreaming and kicked me out of the bed. Thought I let him settle a little more and get myself something to drink.”

They stood in silence for a while, watching the forest in the darkness, Clint tapping his fingers on the water bottle slowly, until Pietro spoke again, frowning slightly.  
“If I show you something, will you promise me not to freak out just yet? Because I still need some time and I am really not sure it's actually getting any close to being stable.”, he mumbled and stuttered and Clint blinked in confusion, letting the younger man step out from under his arm.  
“What are you talking about, kid?”, he asked but Pietro turned his eyes pleading, “Alright, fine, I promise to not make a big deal out of whatever this might be. I told you, we are doing this on your terms and your time, no one is pressuring you into anything. Now, what do you want to show me? The place of the tree Coop is planning to chain Tony up to, to never have him leave again? Or the dungeon Lila prepared to lock all of us up in, but most of all Steve?”, Clint laughed over his own stupid jokes while Pietro rolled his eyes before focusing back on him.

“No, and it's a fluffy castle in the clouds made out of unicorn hair and candy, not a dungeon.”, Pietro corrected his assessment of his younger daughter's kidnapping plans, “Drop the bottle.”, Pietro ordered him to then and Clint blinked.  
“Excuse me?”, he wanted to know but Pietro narrowed his eyes at him, “Fine, whatever.”, raising his hand a little, Clint let go of the glass bottle, already whining on the inside for the nice apple tasting water he would lose now.

But the bottle never hit the ground.

Ten seconds passed in silence.

“Oh my god.”, it spluttered from Clint's lips then, eyes snapping up from the still clean floor up to the bottle held out for him to take again. Held out by a widely grinning Pietro, “Oh my god!”, he repeated and then rushed forward and wrapped a suddenly laughing Pietro up into his arms, “Oh my god.”  
“You didn't see that coming, huh, old man?”, Pietro laughed only harder when Clint squeezed him tighter, snorting out a laugh himself.  
“Oh shut up, son.”, and Pietro turned his face into Clint's neck and snorted through another burst of laughter, taking the older man right along.

\--

Thanksgiving dinner on the next day went perfectly smooth and Clint found himself observing his mismatched family for almost the entire three hours that they ate, chatted, laughed and shared stories. It was almost perfect, all missions, all open projects, all mistakes, all drama, everything forgotten for one evening. And the only temper tantrum being thrown had been Lila trying to decide where she wanted to sit, ending up switching between being squished between Steve and Sam and wriggling around on Nick's lap.

Nate didn't seem to get what the whole fuss was about and decided that sleep was a better choice than whatever they were doing and dosed off before Clint even got to cut the turkey. Cooper was in highest spirits between Bruce and Pietro and across from Tony and Vision, barely shutting up long enough to eat. Wanda and Laura were lost in their little world as well and with Rhodey being wrapped into the Lila entertaining bubble, Clint was left with Natasha leaning closer to whisper in his ear as he stabbed another carrot.

“Feels good, doesn't it?”, she asked and reached down a hand to scratch Lucky behind his ears, prompting the dog to flop down over Clint's feet, having him groan in fake annoyance.  
“It...it almost feels whole again.”, he offered silently and had to close his eyes for a moment, but when Natasha slipped her hand into his under the table and squeezed twice, he looked up again and smiled, “But yes, it does feel good. And I'm okay. I am happy, and everything is looking up. Might as well enjoy what we have right now. How are you holding up?”

“Well.”, Natasha started silently, “I'm beginning to understand how difficult it is for Steve not to go running off into the world again to find Bucky. I need him to come home, I've got so many questions now I'd love to have answered.”, she explained and it was Clint's turn to squeeze her hand.  
“He'll come to us when he is ready, and we need to give him that time. Remember how you were doing when I cornered you the first times? Like a caged tiger.”, Natasha narrowed her eyes but Clint chuckled, “Only this tiger has a) a metal arm, and b) not really so into him biting me.”

“Oh, really.”, Natasha turned her glare into a smirk and leaned even closer, “That's a new one. You sounded much different when I was lying in that freaking hospital bed after Odessa.”  
“No, I wasn't.”, Clint protested and threw a quick look to the others, but no one spared them even a glance, talking and laughing and there was Sam wondering over the suddenly doubled amount of carrots on his plate where Lila's showed not a single one anymore.

“Oh come on.”, Natasha laughed at his side, “You would have thrown yourself at his feet and begged to be taken, you would have cut off an arm to have him bite you.”, blushing to the roots of his hair, Clint cleared his throat and called into the round if someone wanted more wine. Natasha didn't lose her smug look for the rest of the day.

\--

Later in the evening, as everyone somehow managed to settle in the living room and they shared stories of past travels, missions or in Steve's case an entire different era, Clint became witness to a scene that would easily stay in his mind forever. Just because it was at the same time the sweetest and most heartbreaking scene he had watched in a long time.

Nate had decided to be fussy at the same minute that Lila had complained over a stomach ache from having eaten too much ice cream, so Laura and Natasha had had their hands full with a whiny six year old and Clint had been buried under Pietro, Wanda and Cooper anyway. So Steve had volunteered without even asking and gone to get Nate from his crib again, settling him on his lab with Bucky Bear and the fluffy baby blanket wrapped around the wriggling little body. Sitting next to him, Tony had finished his story about a badly gone wrong party at MIT and then promptly gone on to make funny faces at Nate and tickle little kicking feet to distract the youngest Barton.

And Steve had watched him with the most besotted look a person could have had, only to grin and blow a raspberry kiss into small hands himself when Nate looked up at him, babbling and giggling as a reaction to it, which in turn let Tony gaze at the blond super soldier as if Steve had personally hung the stars and moon for him. 

Clint felt bad for Radcliff, because she was a great girl and only deserved the best. The best that Steve could give her, could really give her, she deserved to have someone like him hopelessly in love with her. And Steve deserved someone like her as well, someone loyal but not shy to speak up against his stubbornness, but that was the point.

Radcliff deserved the same loyalty and devotion, and Steve's heart was clearly hanging onto someone else as well. Someone who loved him. Someone who was single. And this could only end in drama.

\--

The one plus point of having at least one child coming after yourself was that it was incredibly easy to tell when they lied to you or at least tried to hide something from your eyes and ears, because Clint Barton had always been horrible at that himself when it came to being scrutinized by people he cared about. Give him a target or a stranger and he'll be the perfect con-man, but take his family and he couldn't even keep up the good old farce of 'of course Santa is real'.

So yes, picking Lila's tells was easy, catching her in the act of sneaking away undetected was even easier.

"What'cha doing, doll?", he drawled, not looking up from behind the newspaper where he was sprawled across the porch swing, but he could sense and picture perfectly how his little daughter froze three steps from the front door, head probably still ducked low where she had tried to sneak up the stairs and into the house without him noticing. Good try. 

"Nothing important, Daddy.", Lila's sweet voice answered and when he dared a look over the edge of the newspaper, he found big round eyes staring back at him as expected, but uhuh, not working this time, princess.  
"How about we try that again, hm?", he said and laid the newspaper to the side, patting his thighs with a defined look her way. Lila deflated visibly, stomped over and sat down on his thighs with a pout on her lips and her arms crossed over her chest, "You're quite dirty.", he noticed, speaking out loud as he went over her with his eyes, shirt flecked with dirt just as her leggings, her shoes covered in grass stains and brown mud, "Doesn't look like 'nothing important' to me, lily-pad. What's up?"

And when he reached out to tickle her, Lila quickly swept her fingers under her arms, prompting him to raise an eyebrow at her until she gave up and stuck her hands his way, rolling her eyes with a huff that made her look like Sarah for a moment.  
"Aha, dirt under the fingernails. Spill the beans, daughter of mine.", Lila shook her head, squeaking when he sat up and snatched her around the middle, letting her dangle over himself, "Sweetheart, what did you bury in the garden?"

Lila squealed and shrieked but said nothing, so Clint brought her down again and started to tickle her mercilessly, just as Steve stepped out onto the porch, jacket already on again, all ready to go but letting his eyes sweep over the porch, "Clint, have you seen the shield?", and suddenly the devil under his hands turned perfectly still and silent and Clint narrowed his eyes.  
"What have you done, Lila?", he pressed and tried to snatch his daughter once more, but Lila slipped off the swing and then fell into a run to slide right through Steve's grasp for her, swinging herself up onto her feet again with help of one of his legs and then taking flight down the stairs.

“LILA!”, Clint yelled and jumped to his feet, vaulting himself over the railing of the porch as Steve already took of a jumping start down the stairs, both in hot pursuit of the squealing six year old girl with flying pigtails. It must have looked hilarious as hell how two world known Avengers stumbled over their own feet as they tried to make a grasp for the little flailing limbs as Lily dodged their attempts.

The noise they made quickly grabbed the attention of the other people and Tony and Natasha were the first out on the porch to see what they were doing. Clint swore heavily when his daughter slipped through his fingers again and made a dash for the little hideout holes under the porch that she just knew he didn't fit in, having built them in just for that reason. A security measure to keep his children safe in case someone ever followed him home.

Someone not wanted here.

“What are you all laughing there!”, Steve snapped, gasping for breath as Sam, Pietro and Nick came out as well, “I want my shield back.”, he pouted and Sam and Tony both cooed at the same time, grinning in pure glee, Natasha cocked an eyebrow at Clint, a look in her eyes that he didn't like at all. Where was the whole thing about leaving calmly and without riling the kids up again, Clint had chosen to let Pietro and himself stay behind for another few days to really make sure the kid was ready and not because Laura needed the help in getting Lila to come back to planet earth inside her little pretty head.

“Lila?”, Natasha called out nevertheless, behind her Wanda, Cooper, Bruce and Rhodey joined as well, and Clint suspected that Vision was somewhere around them anyway and Laura was certainly standing right behind the window in Nate's room...yup, movement, his eyes were still perfect. A small giggle came from under the porch, “How about we let the better team decide who wins the shield.”, Natasha offered and started smirking.

Steve went to protest, looking more and more like the kid who lost his favorite trading card to the older sibling in a stupid bet, but Lila's enthusiastic “yes, yes, yes” came quicker.  
“Great. We take Vision, Rhodey, Bruce and Tony. You can have the pouting patriot, your bird friend, Wanda and your boys.”, Natasha decided and then swung herself off the porch before Clint could have protested and pulled Lila out of the dark hole, throwing her up into Tony's arms, “Let the better one win the shiny frisbee.”

“It's not a...”, but Steve's and Tony's protests were cut off when Cooper stormed over to Clint.  
“Oh, it's a war! A superhero war!”, he declared and Steve send a demanding look over to Clint who could only shrug his shoulders in return, helpless, he was helpless against his women.

\--

“I can't believe you threw me into a ball of hay!”, Clint smirked as Tony passed him on his way to the ramp of the quinjet, Steve shuffling after him with red ears and pouty lips, shield stuck to the harness on his back against but covered from top to bottom in stickers of all kinds, ranging from pink glittery Hello Kitty faces to iconic little colorful My little Pony ones. 

If he didn't get them off before they faced off against Rumlow's men or god beware Rumlow himself, they would die of embarrassment alone probably, or Rumlow of laughter, now that was an option Clint could get behind. Completely.  
“I'm sorry.”, Steve mumbled for the fifth time, and Tony glared playfully at him over his shoulder, still holding the pack of ice to the back of his head, hay still sticking out of his black hair.

“You better be sorry or you'll help me pick this stuff out of my underwear for weeks, and I'm not explaining things to Radcliff.”, they vanished into the jet and Sam threw a long suffering look to Rhodey as they pushed more bags to the ramp. Bruce and Vision followed them and helped, Bruce's voice threatening to lock them up or tie them to the wings if they didn't shut up anytime soon rang out in the inside not a minute later and Natasha groaned as she hugged Clint goodbye.

“Do you really wanna go with them now?”, Pietro asked Wanda and she leaned up to kiss his cheek as her only response, still wearing the crown Lila had made for her because it had been her taking Clint down as the last one standing on Team Cap.  
“I'll see you two in a couple of days, don't give Mom too much trouble.”, Wanda warned both of them and then waved one last time over to where Laura was watching with Nate in her arms. Lila and Cooper had reluctantly gone to school this morning and said goodbye at breakfast already and Nick had vanished in the night as always.

As the ramp got raised shut behind Lila, Clint walked over to Pietro and grinned, watching the engines warm up and then the jet take off slowly, making one last circle around the house before vanishing into the sky.  
“Well, this turned out better than I had expected. House survived the combined forces of all Avengers, I'm a better builder than I gave myself credit for.”, Clint praised himself and Pietro snorted, pushing him to get going back to Laura.

“Yeah, old man, keep telling yourself that.”, he challenged and then took off as Clint growled, charging forward and swinging himself behind Laura as Clint took pursuit.

\--

tbc

\--


	14. Interlude: A Soldier in Romania and a Suit on a Plane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, why is there an Interlude chapter?  
> Explanation is easy, and I hope you guys understand. The next real chapter that is important for the fic's plotline has quite a bit of violence in it, with bombs and shootings and after what happened in the last days, I really can't stomach posting it. So I'm holding it off for a little while and instead I am posting this spontaneously written Interlude chapter that shows you two other people having Thanksgiving. And we'll see both of them again soon in the real plotline.
> 
> Have fun, feedback as always longed for.

The first time the Soldier met the young girl who would later become the only girl he had ever dared to call his and be proud that she had called him hers in return – the survivor – she was one week shy of her fourth birthday. She had been sitting on a stool in the dance hall of the Academy, over by the windows, poised and at attention and no doubt listening in on exactly who was approaching the room from the corridor now.

The little girl's red hair had been pulled up into a strict knot, still wearing her ballet tights and tutu-dress, her back straight and her feet hanging in the air, far from reaching the ground, but not kicking back and forth like the Soldier had seen so many other kids this small do. This little girl was calm and quiet, unmoving, her face turned into the light from beyond the windows, watching what only she could see.

Lukin explained once more what his purpose now was and the Soldier nodded, the mission, the purpose, his being here, the rules, it was all clear to him.  
“Well then, she is yours for the next two hours. Get to know her.”, Lukin snapped in his deep and heavily accented Russian one last time and then turned on the spot, striding over to a giggling group of girls in another room, all of them wearing simple black pants and shirts, whipping to attention the second the director stepped into the room and slammed the door shut.

The Soldier turned back to the little girl at the window and quietly stepped into the room, fully intend on not breaking the peace of it. His feet moved him over to her, and he crouched down, effectively blocking out some of the light that fell onto her, so he was able to take a first good look at her face, and immediately noticed the sharp green eyes that watched him.

No sign of fear in her, cautious curiosity at best, still holding still and quiet, waiting for him to talk first, to ask questions she was allowed to answer. The Soldier smiled, and hesitantly she returned the gesture, thin lips curling into a barely there smile, shy and careful.  
“They told you who I am, why I was sent for you.”, he told her in Russian and she nodded, one simple curt nod, “You may call me Yasha. Can you tell me your name?”

“Natalia.”, came the quick reply, her voice quiet but still strong and obedient, and the Soldier smiled a little more, straightened up again and held out a hand, the flesh one.  
“Then come with me, my little котенок, we will take a walk and you can show me all the beautiful places that you like here.”, she slipped from the stool and reached up to grab his offered hand but then clearly hesitated in walking to his side.

“No shoes with me, Yasha.”, she spoke up and blinked wide green eyes up at him, clearly expecting a punishment for not being prepared, but the Soldier surprised her when he huffed in annoyance, but not directed at her but at her caretakers who had left her for the Soldier with no shoes, he would see to it that it wouldn't happen again.

Leaning down, he swept her up into his arms and settled her feather light weight onto the metal arm, making sure not to pinch her on accident before walking over to the open backyard door.  
“Your first lesson, little котенок, is to understand that you are something special. Something better than the others, something precious. Someone worthy.”, the Soldier began to speak as they walked out into the warm sun of the afternoon and into the garden between the Academy building and the dormitories, “And that is why Lukin brought me here, for you, only for you, to make sure you will get the best training there is, so that Mother Russia will be proud of my little котенок.”

His little котенок.

The girl who would later become the only surviving Black Widow.

Natalia Alianovna Romanova.

Natasha Romanoff.

\--

The last time he sees little Natashenka before they make him forget her, he is hunting her down and then watching her take the hand of a young man - on the rooftop of a burning Budapest. Red hair blowing in the wind, her face darkened by ash and blood, her whole body shivering with the cold and the blood-loss, but she still never showed weakness, never bowed, never broke, just like he taught her.

But he had also known that she could break free from the chains around her wrists, could leave it all behind and start anew, away from Lukin, away from the Red Room and away from him. She would lead a better life, and so he had lowered his rifle and had taken a step away from the edge of the rooftop from where he had watched Hawkeye talking the Widow down for nearly half an hour until she had finally lowered her gun and walked over to him.

Instead of leaving right away though, telling Lukin that he had lost his target and accepting his punishment because it meant Natalia would live, he had remained in the shadows of the higher building not too far and had watched how Hawkeye had coaxed her closer and kept on talking, smiling, comforting her, like he had always done it with her. 

He had watched how this man he had no memories of but knew nevertheless took quick care of the worst of her wounds and then called for what Yasha suspected was extraction, and true, not fifteen minutes later, a chopper approached from the South and touched down at the edge of the roof. And it was then that Hawkeye reached out his hand towards Natalia, lips quirking into a soothing grin, and Natalia didn't even hesitate anymore, grabbed his hand and let him swing her up into the open chopper door.

And it wasn't Natalia who threw the look over her shoulder and caught his eyes dead on, it was Hawkeye, and Yasha stared into those blue eyes for a moment, tried to find any ill will held towards his Natashenka, but he found none. So he nodded, once, and then disappeared.

Days later when he walked back into the Academy, without the Widow caught and bound at his side, the punishment followed and he almost found relief in them. He let Yasha die that night, let them take all memories, all little things he had ever known about what Yasha had done, what he had meant to one special little girl, because he knew that Natalia wouldn't need him anymore, someone else would take care of her now and make sure that Lukin would never be able to lay a hand on her again.

The Soldier trusted Hawkeye to do it, didn't even ask himself why until many years later.

\--

He shoots her. Twice.

\--

She isn't the mission or the target in Odessa, she is simply in the way and collateral damage as he takes out the scientist he was sent to kill and she was sent to protect. In the stomach, right through, he stays long enough to see the scientist die and Hawkeye jump out of a landing chopper to get to his partner. The Soldier doesn't remember any of them, but he lets them live, because none of them were the mission.

\--

She is the mission in DC. He shoots her in the shoulder and is closing in on finishing her off when Captain America stops him and sets something in motion that even the machines can't stop anymore. He still doesn't know who the Widow really is when he jumps out of the helicarrier to save Steve Rogers.

\--

The Soldier doesn't die, but he gives up control after a lot of internal wrestling and three day long headaches. Bucky Barnes awakes first and Yasha a few days later when he takes rest in a small Russian village on the desperate paranoia fueled flight he takes from everyone and everything.

\--

He remembers.

He remembers her as well.

In a small wooden shag in the middle of nowhere in the Russian taiga, turning the place upside down in a frantic search for something he knows is there but doesn't even have a guess about what it could be.

It's pictures. Of a child. Yasha knows her, Yasha says it's the Widow. It's her. Natalia. Little Natashenka.

His Natashenka.

\--

Four days later, he remembers Hawkeye. The scrawny little archer boy he pulled out of the fire. The young man who gave his Natashenka a new life. 

Clint Barton.

\--

So there he was now. Spending Thanksgiving with an ex mercenary in a small cabin in the Romanian mountains, because the Soldier, Yasha and finally Bucky Barnes as well, all of them trusted Clint Barton.

\--

Trickshot jumped and dropped the bag of oranges to the ground as he caught sight of Bucky leaning in the doorway of the kitchen, or what the other man called kitchen in this shag of a cabin.   
"I am going to put a bell on you.", the older man snarled before he bent down to pick up his oranges again and then turned to set them on the counter, Bucky silently raised an eyebrow and walked over to the small table with the two simple wooden chairs.

He sat down and crossed one leg over the other, leaning back and plastering blue eyes on the back of his host's head, knowing fully well just how much it was driving Trickshot batshit insane, even if he had only been here for two days. But some people were easier to read than others, and Barney Barton definitely belonged to the first group, just as much as his brother belonged to the group of people you needed some time to figure out.

When it came to Hawkeye, Bucky relied on the instinct's of the Soldier, knew he could trust him because the Soldier did. Trickshot, well, even Bucky Barnes could read him like a book. His ticks, his dislikes, and his fears.

"You're doing it again.", Barney complained after barely two minutes and Bucky chuckled, but nevertheless averted his look and reached for the bottle of water on the table. He had come back to Romania and showed up for the second time at the older Barton brother's front door after the younger Barton brother had gotten a message to him via a horribly terrified wide eyed Polish girl tracking him down in Belarus. 

The message had more or less stated that he deserved a break and a roof and a warm place for Thanksgiving, 'you can go back to hobo life after that again, you seem to like it so much, RoboMan', that had been the second half of it, and back in the room that Barney had reluctantly given him, Bucky already had an answer waiting, but he wanted to wait first, see if there was any sign that Barton had gotten his present.

"Hey, dead eyes!", Barney snapped him out of his thoughts again, leaning back against the kitchen counter, knife and carrot in his hands, "Be lazy somewhere else or make yourself useful."  
"Jeez, can you sound more like my mother.", Bucky complained and evaded the knife that got thrown at his head with a lazy roll off the chair and onto his feet, catching the knife from midair blade first with his metal hand and swinging it around to embedden it into the wooden countertop.

Barney scowled but said nothing, just grabbed the knife handle and pulled, frowning when it didn't budge and then pushed his entire weight into getting it out of the wood as Bucky snorted and then left the room laughing.   
"Oh shut your mouth, Barnes!", Barney yelled after him as Bucky had already reached the backdoor and was grabbing his parka and the boots, "And don't shoot the wildlife again!"

Rolling his eyes as he slipped into shoes and jacket, Bucky didn't think about honoring that with an answer and left the door quietly, stepping into the empty backyard, his feet moving him over to the corner around the corner of the house where he had found the older Barton chopping firewood the first time he had come to him. For information back then, following Rumlow and Rollins on their trip through Eastern Europe until they had stopped in Odessa for so long that Bucky had left them to their own doings.

Back then Odessa had simply given him the creeps, made him uneasy and restless and unable to settle his mind for even a second, so he had turned his back on wanting revenge face to face and gone back to hunting down the Red Room members. Now, the Soldier was no more in control, not even slightly, Yasha had been calmed for the time being since he had finished the letter for the Widow and sent off that envelope package, and Bucky knew what had happened in Odessa.

And would have immediately preferred not to have remembered it, he could only hope they were safe now, either rescued or dead. Shaking those thoughts off, he grabbed the axe and a block of wood, turning to chop, letting the repeated motion let him fall into a trance like state.

"Aren't super legendary assassins supposed to be vigilant at every second?", Barney's voice had Bucky jump and flinch a while later, axe flying in a wide arc into the field as he whirled around to glower at the middle aged man leaning against the side of the cabin, grinning and twirling a piece of string between his fingers.

Bucky was still forcing his heartrate down again and pushing the Soldier's angry growl and demand to know what the hell was wrong with this man to the back of his mind again, he narrowed his eyes at Barney though who raised his hands and his eyebrows.  
"Sorry, jeez, Barnes, just breathe. Didn't want to scare you to death, just thought that two hours of chopping is enough for now. That wood will get me through the next three winters.", blinking in confusion at the other man's words, Bucky turned around to stare at the three giant heaps of chopped wood he had piled up.

"Oh.", was the only pathetic answer he could come up with and Barney snorted, and now where he was back with his senses, he could hear the other man move to stand next to him, one hand coming up to rest on his shoulder.  
"You okay, Barnes? You zoned out epically.", and Bucky had no answer, it had been quite a while since he had last zapped out enough and deep enough that he hadn't been aware of anything around himself. 

And back then the Soldier had still been wrestling for control from him and the pure exhaustion of always trying to keep his head in the game had taken its toll on him, and he had spaced out. Usually when he was safe, when the Soldier felt safe, which had been rare. And suddenly it was happening again, for the second time in three days, and why in god's name was this godforsaken rundown shag in the middle of fucking nowhere giving him the feeling of being safe?

For fuck's sake, he had followed the frigging Commander here, he had seen Barney speaking with Rumlow and Rollins, giving them information, just like he had then done it with him and then later had it repeated with his brother once more. How could this place feel safe? When Rumlow and with him Hydra knew of it? God, why Soldier, why are you feeling fucking safe with this asshole of a human being?

Proven again when Barney grunted and roughly shook his shoulder, Bucky seriously wondered how the other Barton had not yet killed him.  
"I'm fine.", he snarled out and wrenched himself away from the older man, stalking over to the back door of the house again and kicking off his boots before stomping over into the small guest room with the sucky light, the sucky bed, and the sucky squeeking floorboards, the sucky mattress and the sucky blanket that still felt like heaven after more than one year on the street and disease riddled hotel rooms.

God, Barnes, you're an idiot. So messed up, starting to think that Hydra known places are safe just because Trickshot is neutral and gives zero shit over what you have done in the past. You think this is safe because Clint Barton will turn over the earth himself if news reaches him that his brother had gotten Bucky caught by Hydra. As if that would ever happen, as if Bucky would let them, he would kill every single one of them himself before letting even one of them lay a finger on him again.

Groaning he flopped face first onto the bed and screamed into a pillow, he needed to get home, he needed to get back to the one place he could truly feel safe because he was safe, simply safe and not because of stupid illogical conclusions too many different headspaces were pulling together into a rational thought. He needed to go home, and there was only one home nowadays, and it sure as hell wasn't Brooklyn anymore.

No, there was only one home, and that was Steve. Steve meant safety, the Avengers meant safety, because they were fighting Hydra, because they would protect him not because of what he could offer them in return but because of what he meant to Steve, Natalia and....Clint Barton...awkwardly enough. That was still not a thought Bucky knew he should appreciate as much as he did, a fan of the Winter Soldier was now co-captain of the Avengers and one of Steve's closest buddies.

One of these days, he would have to ask Steve just how he had found these people. And ask Natalia just for what ridiculous reason she thought going with Hawkeye had been a better decision than let him free them himself. Stupid scrawny little kid grown into an even stupider superhero assassin.

And idolizing the world's most lethal weapon, jesus, man, how fucked up had your childhood been, but then again, judging by the character traits and manners your big brother is portraying, you maybe got out on the better end in this. Still didn't explain why a 16 year old had been chasing ghosts and nearly caught up to him twice.

Twice.

Not even old handlers had been that successful. Not even Lukin. 

Turning his head to the side again, Bucky let his eyes flicker over the pictures frame on the wall over the desk, the ones he still suspected Barney had forgotten to pull down or had just not bothered with it, thinking that Bucky would find them after all in the pat down of the room he had done in the first two hours of his second stay.

Careful, that was the word of today.

A cheeky eyed blond little boy was grinning with a wide toothgap from one of the pictures, the same boy riding piggyback on a slightly older boy in another. And then a scrawny little prebuscent teenager scowling in a third, smaller one. The rest of the wall area over the desk was covered in recent newspaper articles, showed headlines the Avengers had made, Clint Barton was most prominently featured in the one a New Yorker newspaper had made about the NAI.

A smiling but still slightly dangerously looking blue eyed man standing at Steve's side, being towered by the other man with sheer size but not with the ego, because where Steve was smiling shyly, Clint Barton looked cocky. And this guy was Bucky's biggest help now. The Winter Soldier's biggest fan was his biggest ally in becoming human again.

What even was his life.

Seemingly exciting and not boring, that was true at least.

He sat up again after a few minutes, knowing fully well just how pathetic it was to sulk in a bed in the middle of the day like a child.   
“Get yourself together, Bucky.”, he told himself resolutely and heaved himself to his feet again, which was becoming quite a task to be honest. Ever since he had panicked and almost took his arm apart in a frantic search for a tracker he had suddenly been convinced of to be buried somewhere in the cables and metal plates.

It hadn't been one of his best moments and he knew and what was even worse, he felt the damage now, felt how it began lacking in response times, how it was feeling heavier and it scared the shit out of him. It was part of him, it was his arm, and you didn't want a part of yourself to be damaged because your head was too messed up to differentiate dream from reality, but it was also the best weapon he had at the moment, he relied on its strength, its precision and it's simply threatening appearance.

Another reason to go home. Stark would fix it, Bucky was sure of it, not could, would. He had read everything he could have gotten his hands on about Howard Stark's son, and if any of his people skills were still even remotely intact, then this engineer would be burning to get a finger on the technology of Bucky's arm.

But he couldn't go, not yet, not while he was still holding conversations to himself inside his head as if it was a fucking documentary.  
“Urgh.”, he groaned and dragged both hands over his face as he walked over to the simple black backpack on the desk and pulled out the laptop Barton had had brought to him by a shyly smiling frigging 18 year old girl with pigtails, a cape and a miniskirt in Rome.

Seriously. What kind of people did this guy know?

Booting the computer up, he settled back on the bed, ears picking up the distinctive sounds of something rummaging around the kitchen on the other end of the short corridor, as if Barney was cooking noisily on purpose to set his nerves on ease. Don't piss off the Soldier, that had been a note written in a messy but still readable handwriting that Barney had shoved at him five minutes after Bucky had stepped through the front door again two days ago, given to the older Barton brother by a lollipop sucking kid from the village.

Oh, had Bucky already mentioned that the paper was purple?

“God, stop talking to yourself about yourself in the third person, man.”, he grumbled and pulled up his google alerts, but when he found nothing, he went on to the newsside, seemed even Avengers were allowed to have a Thanksgiving weekend free of bad guys. And now there was an interesting thought, was Rumlow, Hydra's all American boy, celebrating Thanksgiving with a bunch of perverted sick bastards?

Or was it loyal Retriever Rollins asking his 'Big Guy' for a few days off to eat turkey? But wait, wasn't Rollins Jewish?

“Okay, you know what, tacky music, fucking tacky music and cat videos until you stop thinking about stupid stuff like that.”, wrenching the headphones out from under the pillow he clicked onto the first youtube video he could find that looked interesting enough and then settled back against the wall, closing his eyes.

\--

Agents Morse and Hunter were bickering in the cockpit and with Mack quiet as always in a corner and May already on sight in Venice with FitzSimmons, Phil Coulson could only take a deep breath and try to disappear to a very far away place where his team was not driving him absolutely insane with completely unnecessary discussions over who had said what to whom at whatever place in whatever point of time.

So he let himself drift off to years where things had been simpler, where it had always been clear just where and how Thanksgiving would be spent, and he had even been happy with it being a rule almost. First it had been a weekend he had spent on base catching up on paperwork with no one around to bother him for once, and he had enjoyed the peace and hadn't known or realized just how much he had missed the comforting and warm feeling of a holiday spent with friends and family.

But then a traumatized skinny kid had fallen into his life in the form of a 21 year old Clint Barton being scraped off the floor by a Shield Strike team on a covert operation in the Middle East with Coulson as accompanying Senior Officer. And boy, one young man to change his entire life.

Suddenly there was Clint.

That's probably the best way to describe it, because suddenly Phil had a best friend, someone to drag him away from the office, someone who so desperately wanted now what he hadn't been able to have in the first 21 years of his life. A family. 

Suddenly there was a celebration of every holiday and Thanksgiving especially became one of Clint's favourites, and he always had something to be thankful for, and most of the time, it was being thankful for still being alive because Phil had given him a second chance.

And then came the strays.

\--

Bobbi was the first, the Academy newbie Clint was sent on missions with to test her abilities in the field, and they not only fell madly in love with each other but also eloped to Vegas. And divorced again just as quick, Clint hadn't even moved out of the apartment he had shared with Phil, and though he had liked what Bobbi had brought out in him, Phil preferred them as friends.

A few short months later, Laura had been the second, beautiful young analyst needed for an undercover operation where Clint played bodyguard and husband. The mission had gone on for weeks, and Phil had not only watched them nail the operation, but also falling in love, and this time he had known it would hold.

Laura had been perfect for him, the rock in the storm, the voice of reason, the gentle heart Clint was so aching for. They became a couple, they moved into their own apartment, they got engaged and Phil made the fake marriage paperwork real without them knowing, telling them on Thanksgiving that year that they had always been married for real.

Then came Natasha and everything changed. They were no longer close friends and a two men operation unit. They became a team, they became a family, and despite Natasha's obvious lack of understanding the concept of Thanksgiving, it had been one of the happiest days in Phil's life, not knowing that it would only be the first of so many to come.

Sarah followed, and with her awakened the wish for more life in their family and Phil could remember like yesterday the evening as Clint and him had watched Sarah and Laura cooking in the kitchen while Natasha read from the cooking book, how his best friend had turned around to him and told him that Laura and him were going to try for a baby.

It wasn't a baby who came next, but a silent girl that had their feisty redhead wrapped around every one of her fingers within the blink of an eye, and made Thanksgiving all the better when Sarah was finally glowing like the sun itself.

Cooper and Lila let the family grow stronger together and were a complete joy for all of them, and Phil found a whole new reason to leave the job behind for a few days to spend time on the farm, to watch them grow, learn, to hear them talk and call him 'uncle P' when his name had still been too difficult.

Tess brought even more fun and joy, the smart young woman who fit so well together with their girls, who laughed and smiled like the sun she was, and Clint was so happy, and Phil was proud. So proud of who he had become.

\--

And now?

The girls were dead. 

Clint, Laura and Natasha thought he was dead.

Cooper and Lily surely thought him to be dead, and Phil could barely breathe still when he thought of how hard it must have hit them.

When would the lies stop?

\--

He wondered if there was a way out of the lies, so far he had staid away from the Avengers and the Initiative, had let liason agents handle whatever cooperation had been needed. Mostly Agents Hill and Radcliff had shown up for potential back-up and had handled investigations or analysis when Coulson’s team itself had been at their limits.

But now…

They were fighting Hydra, the Avengers were fighting Hydra, it was only a matter of time until their paths crossed, and Phil preferred to have the first conversations with them face to face in a settled environment and not on the battlefield. He owed it to Steve, Natasha and Tony, and most of all he owed it to Clint.

And he could only pray that after the first shock had faded, that his former best friend wouldn’t be angry for long. That Clint may not forgive him for the lies didn’t cross Phil’s mind for a second, that just wasn’t an option, they both, they all knew their jobs came with lies and need-to-know operations, and sometimes a job just took longer.

Nick had said that Clint was doing well, that he had taken on a way more crucial role in the Avengers than before, that he was leading alongside Cap, and Phil couldn’t have been more proud. To know that after all these years, that scrawny traumatized kid had finally found his place in the world. 

“Boss?”, looking up from his laptop, Phil found Bobbi looking at him from where she was leaning against the closed cockpit door, hopefully not leaving the plane’s control entirely to Hunter, but to the autopilot instead.  
“Bobbi?”, he asked right back and after closing it shoved the laptop onto the seat next to him, “Something up? Can I do anything for you?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, you maybe can.”, Bobbi said and moved to sit down across from him, fingers playing with the hem of her shirt, an unfamiliar gesture, one that didn’t show nervousness with her but stress, and Phil’s entire attention was immediately on his agent, “Clint still doesn’t know that I am a Shield agent still, he is set in the belief that I followed Hunter into being a merry little mercenary, not the other way around.”

“So he knows you’re operating with Hunter?”, Phil wanted clarified, knowing that despite everything that had happened Clint and Bobbi had never lost and would never lose contact, some friendships were meant to last forever, even if it was a strained one like they had.  
“He does, it was near to impossible to keep it secret when he started asking for favors, and don’t even raise your eyebrow at me, I owe him a lot. I did what I did, but I always told you first. I never went off the grid without warning you first, what Hunter thinks he needs to do to butter up to Clint is his own problem.”, she explained and Phil sighed, knowing where she was going with this, “But it’s getting difficult, and I am not willing to shoulder the fallout if he spots me with you or just sees the Shield badge. Clint doesn’t trust Shield, Fury said as much, and right now we cannot risk losing the Avenger’s support.”

“So, you are asking me to get over myself and show my face to the Avengers?”, he asked in return and Bobbi nodded, simple gesture, not able to be misunderstood.  
“I don’t know to what extent Clint made contact with the Soldier, Barnes, whatever, but he has been using his old network and I’m not the only one in that network with contact to you. You share old friends and old enemies with Clint, boss, and who says they won’t ask Clint one of these days in why he isn’t working with you any longer. There are too many ways this could end ugly, so why not go ahead and solve this problem before it solves itself.”, Bobbi offered and Phil sighed, but nodded after a moment of hesitation.

“We’ll see how Italy goes and then I’ll contact Hill to arrange something.”, he offered and Bobbi smiled in real gratitude, patting his knee before standing up and going back into the cockpit, where she immediately yelled for Hunter to get away from the buttons. Phil leaned back and let himself drift off into his thoughts again to the sound of Bobbi’s and Hunter’s bickering.

Maybe it was time.

\--

tbc


	15. My Name is Quicksilver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read the title for this chapter, you might already have a guess to what happens in this. Also say welcome back to the bad guys! Let's try and kick some ass!

Of course, and Clint and Pietro had actually made a bet about it on their last evening on the farm before flying back to the base and reporting back to active duty, peace and fluffy happiness did not last long in their lives, at least not in the life of an Avenger. It was a couple of days after they had gotten back to the base, on the same day that Steve and Tony returned stone-faced from Moscow, keeping tight lipped over what they may or may not have found out and not driving Clint crazy with it at all. 

Barnes had apparently advised, or how Clint suspected told with dead eyes, Trickshot to get an urgent message to him and Jarvis had alerted them of a young woman frantically asking for Mister Stark back at the tower in New York. In her hands had been a scribbled message that she only wanted to hand over to Stark, and in those words, Barnes warned them of an impending attack Hydra was planning on a weapon's facility in downtown Richmond.

And judging by the size and the sheer overwhelming layout of the private run factory, Steve and Clint had decided to take the entire team for a counter measure, the army alarmed but told to stay on alert and back up mode for the time being.

\--

They walked into a trap. Of course they did.

Because hey, there is a thought, if you know your enemy really well, he does too.

\--

“Steve, Clint, get down!”

And things turned to shit.

Tony had barely yelled at the top of what the suit gave him in voice repeaters when Steve and Clint flattened themselves to the ground and let the grenade fly over their heads and down into the stack of empty barrels. The following explosion still sent metal and wood flying everywhere and Steve just about managed in time to reach for his shield and guard himself and a groaning Clint from them.

“Fuck.”, Clint spit out the blood from where he had bitten his tongue and lip in his desperate attempt to get down, but it all was forgotten and pushed to the side as the laughter rang out over the plain courtyard of the factory. He caught Steve's look for a short moment and then as the sound of metallic boots touching down behind where they had scrambled back onto their feet, they turned around together and looked up to the black clad figure in the white crossed suit.

And of all the things Clint had suspected and expected to feel in this moment, none of it felt worse than the heated up beast of betrayal that shot through his body. Not the rage, not the fury, not the pain of knowing that this monster knew where his girls were. It was the betrayal. And he wondered how Steve had to feel, after everything they knew now, behind them Tony kept silent and motionless, one hand raised nevertheless to be ready to defend them.

Clint knocked an arrow and raised his arms, aiming for the ugly face he shut have punched in years ago, but Steve reached out with one hand and pushed his down again.  
“Oh, look, is good old Rogers still intend of seeing only the best in people?”, Hydra's new head crooned and took one more step to the edge of the walkway he was perched upon, grenade launcher held loosely in his hands, the goons at his side had the rifles aimed at their heads though. 

There was no sign of Rollins, that was Clint's second thought as Steve narrowed blue eyes at Rumlow's superior smirk, they were outnumbered, six to one, but he still counted the odds in their favor. Even though something must have clearly had been done to Rumlow, because a burn victim looked different, his face was still clearly the same menacing evil visage that he had never wanted Sarah to trust, but had then trusted himself.

God, how much he wanted to punch Rumlow.

But Rollins not being at his side only meant that there was another team on side, surely led by Rumlow's sweet second in command lover boy.  
“Widow, come in.”, he called into the comm line, but got no answer, up on the walkway, Rumlow slowly walked over to the ladder, “Widow, come in, now!”, he repeated his call and then watched with horrified eyes how Rumlow simply swung himself over the edge where the railing made a gap and landed with barely a muscle moved in his face.

15 feet. A jump none of them would have been able to make without at least a serious injury, all of them aside from Bruce and...Steve.  
“Shit!”, he breathed out and Tony had him suddenly dangling from one arm and up in the air as Rumlow charged towards Steve with a battle cry, dark eyes filled with nothing but bloodlust, “Lemme down, Tony!”, Clint yelled and struggled to fit an arrow against the bow string as the goons swarmed out and started to fire, “Tony, he is like Steve and...”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it!”, Tony snapped at him and set Clint down on a turned over container before flying off to take care of his own share of Hydra idiots, “Why do you think I got you out of there?”, his voice continued to snap in Clint's ear, “Steve can hold his own, let's take care of the ones firing at us!”, but as pissed off as he sounded, Clint could still detect the shock in Tony's voice.

Fucking hell. Another one. Another super soldier, and shit how many things that explained. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Natasha, come in, right now!”, he yelled and took out the explosives, sending three goons flying off into the dawn at once, but there was still silence on the other end of the line, “Pietro!”, he tried instead and got a small reply in response, “Back-up, I repeat, we need back-up! Rumlow on sight, and he is juiced up as well! Code Green! Do you copy?”, all spit and yelled as he dodged the machine gun fire.

\--

Natasha wasn't usually someone to disobey and downright ignore her orders to go off mission, quite on the contrary, she was known for following the path straight to the goal. In, out. Clear straight path, no casualties, clean kill, clean intel, clean interrogation unless demanded otherwise, she got the job done without messing it up.

One of the reasons why Coulson had been so eager to get her into a team with Clint and him back in the day, because Clint had quite a different base line. The messier it got, the happier Clint was. He was the one who saw something interesting or pretty or puzzling and just had to follow his gut instincts, no matter in what chaos it brought him.

She couldn't really complain about it too much, it had been the way he had found her, Sarah and later together with her Julie. But she was different, she didn't like to sway from the mission, but sometimes, and she called it the Barton influence, she just got this feeling and had to follow her gut.

Which in this case today meant slipping away from Sam and Vision and slip into a dark side corridor while disabling her comm. Something was pulling her forward and Natasha raised the gun in her hands higher when she felt the invisible strings pulling at something in her mind, trying to trigger a memory of something that was just out of reach.

At the end of the corridor a red emergency light flickered, pointing the way to the exits, in the distant something was humming, something mechanical and a shiver worked its way down her back. Something was important here, something she needed to see, needed to find.

She never saw the shot coming.

One second she was stepping around the corner, gun drawn and poised, and in the next she was looking right up into the cold hard pokerface of Jack Rollins and the shot hit her in the thigh.

Not a bullet, that was the very first thought in her hand as she crumbled to the ground, Rollins dodging the shot she fired at him before she hit the floor, but even as she inwardly breathed out in relief upon not having to worry about the bloodloss, Natasha knew something was wrong. There was no pain, nothing that signaled her that she had been hit, thigh wounds were a bitch usually, more life threatening than a collapsed lung out in the field, but when her hand fumbled towards her thigh while the other fired another shot at a calmly sidestepping Rollins she didn't find blood, instead she pulled a dart out of her leg.

“Meant for supersoldiers.”, came the silent words from the tall man slowly advancing on her, “It interacts with the serum, neat little trick, and trust me, it works.”, there was no sign of any emotion playing out on Rollins' face, just completely blankness and dark unreadable eyes, and despite how hot the betrayal still was, Natasha had wondered until the bitter end, right until this moment if she would see at least some kind of regret in Jack's eyes, but there was none. 

She had walked right into his trap.

Backed up into a dead-end of the second main corridor in the basement of the facility, her leg going numb, forcing her down onto the ground again as she tried to get back up. Rollins came closer and closer, advancing on her with calm measured steps, and his words raced through her head, and left her feeling sick over the question how many times he had brought the Soldier down like this already.

“Unfortunately, “, he spoke up again, kicking the gun from her hands as Natasha felt her body grow heavy and tired, “The paralysis is only local, and temporary of course.”, he drawled and had never sounded more like Rumlow, a few more movements and he had disabled the Widow bites and taken the comm from her ear, “So it takes a second shot to really disable the weapon.”, he spoke and in the next blink of an eye, Natasha had the barrel of the tranquilizer gun sitting at her neck, “Be happy, Romanoff, you won't remember any of this soon enough.”

\--

Pietro was multitasking, switching from one screen to the next in the jet, fingers flying over the keyboards, pulling up security footage and scans of the factory with Jarvis's and Friday's help. Tony and Natasha had given him enough crash-course lectures in hacking and computer technology that he was the best solution for back-up support now where Steve and Clint especially were still hesitant in letting someone from the outside into the heart of their missions. 

The comm in his ear was switching back and forth between their communication lines, set through to who needed him more at the moment by Friday.   
“Security measures are down, Rhodes.”, he spoke out and then whirled around to take another look at the blue prints, “Entrance to the control room should be to your left in about fourteen feet.”, Rhodey called back an affirmative and Pietro let himself take a breath, sending a look over to Bruce leaning against the side of the jet, watching the factory grounds through the opened ramp.

The Quinjet was standing quite a distance away, hidden under the mirror panels of the cloaking devices, but they were still close enough to provide back-up and a potential extraction possibility in case something went wrong. And it happened faster than any of them would have liked as Clint's voice came into his ear, sounding frantic and out of breath.  
“Pietro!”, he tried instead and got a small reply in response, “Back-up, I repeat, we need back-up! Rumlow on sight, and he is juiced up as well! Code Green! Do you copy?”

“I copy.”, Pietro called back and switched the screens to the main courtyard, cursing loudly enough to have Bruce jog over, eyes roaming over the fight between Cap and Crossbones, the man Pietro only knew from pictures and files so far. Around them, Hydra soldiers were engaging Tony and Clint in a serious firefight, and Pietro tensed for a second when Tony dove in to get Clint out of a rain of grenades and up on another rooftop.

“You're up, Banner.”, he spoke out and only saw Bruce nod out of the corner of his eyes, before the older man slipped off his jacket and then left the Quinjet, and not a second later the Hulk roared, “Yeah, stop showing me who is alpha and go down and smash, Hulk!”, Pietro yelled over his shoulder while he was already switching through to Sam's comm, “Wilson, we have a problem.”, he spoke out and flipped through the security cameras to find Natasha.

“What did Steve do now?”, Sam growled under his breath and Pietro grimaced, not willing to be witness of that particular conversation back on base, Sam could complain about Steve's hovering qualities all he wanted, but he could be just as bad.  
“Crossbones on sight, I repeat, Crossbones on sight and engaged in hand to hand. Iron Man and Hawkeye are facing off against heavy gunfire from at least a dozen Hydra soldiers.”, Pietro explained and frowned at the screens when he couldn't find Natasha anywhere.

“Jarvis, try and find Romanoff. Sam, do you copy?”, he continued and shortly looked back to Cap and the former Commander Rumlow, the fight was getting more and more ugly and Pietro hoped that with the Hulk on sight, Tony or Clint would be able to help Cap.  
“I copy, we'll head back in their direction. Eyes on Widow yet?”, Sam asked and Pietro had to answer in the negative.

\--

Pietro was watching Clint and Steve fight together against Rumlow, with Tony taking care of the still firing Hydra soldiers around the courtyard when Jarvis transferred the live footage of one of the basement corridors onto the monitors, and Pietro was standing before he knew what was happening. Blue eyes watched Natasha falling to the ground and then pulling herself further back into the dead-end of the corridor and from the darkness Jack Rollins walked into the view of the security camera.

“Agent Romanoff seems injured and in need of assistance, Mister Maximoff.”, the AI declared and Pietro let his eyes fly over the number of the camera and then towards the blueprints, having Natasha's location in the next second as Rollins kicked the gun out of her hand, Natasha laid on the ground as if heavy weights were pinning her down.

His head was racing, he needed to do something, no one was close enough to get to her fast enough, Rhodey and Wanda were on the other side of the facility, the rest engaged in fights with the mass of Hydra soldiers. He needed to do something, think Pietro, think.

Thinking was not what happened though.

Because in one blink of his eyes, he was staring at the monitors, seeing the stressed grimace on Natasha's face and within the next, he was falling to his knees in the middle of the entrance of the factory garage, hands falling to his racing heart.  
“Fuck.”, he breathed out, closing his eyes against the sudden nausea and vertigo, but they snapped open again in the next second because the jet had been standing more than a 300 feet from the factory.

The panic in his mind and in his blood reminded him of the situation at hand and he told himself to freak out later, he had things to do now, friends to save. Pushing himself to his feet, he turned around to find the staircase to the basement Sam, Natasha and Vision had used earlier, and when he found it, he was off.

The way down was a single blur and the adrenaline flooded his system with a confidence he wouldn't have had any other way as he kicked Rollins off of Natasha and whirled around to aim the gun at him in the next second, from down below he felt Natasha staring at him.  
“Drop the gun!”, Pietro snapped and in his ear Clint was yelling to know what was going on, he must have forgotten to deactivate his comm, “I said, drop the gun.”, he repeated when Rollins moved himself to his feet again but made no move to lower his weapon.

“Real nice, kid, but I have other ideas.”, the older man said and then threw something their way, speaking into his wrist as he turned to disappear through a door at the side, “They have their lost enhanced back.”, but Pietro didn't hear him anymore as he leaned down, picked Natasha up and dashed away before the flash bang could hit the ground.

\--

The fight was done as quickly as it had begun, just as surprisingly as they had appeared, Rumlow and Rollins were vanished from the factory grounds again, still standing and moving Hydra soldiers with them. Steve send Tony out for a lullaby and Vision, Wanda and Rhodey for a quick sweep of the factory buildings, while Clint, Sam and him started a quick interrogation of the men and women they had managed to subdue.

Clint was trying not to punch any faces in when the real thing he wanted to do was smash them all into the dirt and race over to Natasha and Pietro to frigging find out what had happened with Rollins.   
“Hey, guys.”, Rhodey called into the comm, just a minute after Tony had declared that he was bringing Bruce back to the jet, “Might be clear already, but this kinda was a trap.”, he informed them and Steve snorted, glaring a man with a blond buzzcut down, “They must have planned this for weeks.”

“Where are you, Rhodey?”, Steve asked and zipped up another pair of soldiers, Sam wordlessly held out another bunch of zip ties when he was done.  
“Control room, not too far from you. There are strategy plans all over here, different kind of attack plans and lists of our known moves. They are way more organized than we thought. And...Well, Rumlow left a message for Clint, Tony and you.”, Steve stopped his doings at Rhodey's words and looked over to Clint, who had tensed himself.

“What kind of message?”, it was Tony's voice asking the question over the comm line though, and Rhodey sighed, hesitating for a moment too long because Wanda took over, her soft voice speaking out words none of them wanted to hear.  
“You're too late. There is no saving your precious little girls anymore. They are mine now.”, Clint roared when Wanda was done talking and whirled around towards the closest prisoner, but Steve jumped to hold him back.

“Go.”, he ordered him, “Go, and see how Nat and Pietro are doing. Now, Clint.”, and he shook himself free and stalked off, leaving Steve to turn hard blue eyes towards the Hydra soldiers, “And we're gonna have a long conversation. Iron Man, assistance requested, Scarlet Witch, get back here as well. We're gonna make them talk.”

\--

When Clint reached Natasha and Pietro, falling to his knees where she was comforting and soothing him instead of the other way around, he broke their stare off when he started fussing over both of them at the same time. Cupping faces, checking over arms and legs, glaring at the bruise on Natasha's cheek and the ripped open left pant leg of her cat suit.

“Fucking hell, are you okay? How did you get her out of there so fast? Jesus fucking Christ, I am going to kill him.”, and on he went, talking right over every attempt Natasha made to push away his hands on her obviously injured and frighteningly not reacting leg at all. She was still lying on the ground, a strangely defenseless posture from her that she would have really not accepted for more than a split second if she had a chance to change it, so she really had to be injured, “Holy shit, how did he manage to corner you, fucking bastard.”

“Clint! Take a breath!”, Natasha snapped and finally got through to her best friend by pulling on his ear when Clint leaned down to take a closer look at the puncture wound on her shin. Blinking up at her with blue eyes, he demanded to know what was going on and then switched his gaze over to Pietro at her side, still holding her up with a knee behind her back, when Natasha nudged her head towards him, “Kinda needs you more right now, I think.”

Clint made a questioning sound and then froze, when he caught sight of Pietro's hands, shaking and trembling and vanishing every then and now, but no, not vanishing, moving too fast.  
“Fuck, oh my god, it's back. Your powers...they're back.”, getting a hand slapped against his chest when he drifted a little too off into a happy freak out, Clint focused back on the situation at hand, “Okay, okay, right. Got his powers back because his teammate nearly got killed, freaking out in a bad way, got it, got it.”

Reaching up with one hand to call for Sam and a med kit, Clint moved around Natasha to take Pietro's face into his hands, “Hey buddy, you with me?”, a hesitant nod followed, “That's good. Nat is fine, you hear me? Scratched up a little, but she is going to be completely fine and that's thanks to you. You did good, okay? Got her away from Rollins, the job is done, Piet.”, shaking hands stopped and then grasped his wrists, and blue eyes focused on his, “There you go. You okay?”, Clint asked, because admittedly Pietro looked a little green, beside them Sam touched down and folded up his wings again.

“Kinda feel like throwing up or passing out.”, Pietro confessed and let Sam take over Natasha, falling against Clint in pure exhaustion, “But it's back, I can feel it again, Clint. It kinda feels like a billion bees in my veins right now, and I really really wanna lay down, but it's back.”, chuckling and letting the rocks fall from his shoulders, Clint laid Pietro down on the ground, letting him adjust to the dizzying speed up of his heart and breathing and entire system, while Sam checked Natasha over.

“Can you feel this?”, Sam's voice drifted over as Clint let Pietro grab both of his hands tightly to ground himself, his head pillowed on the archer's thigh.  
“Can't, but don't freak out. He hit me with a tranquilizer.”, Natasha answered and Sam swore as her green eyes looked over to Clint, “He wasn't trying to kill me, Clint, he tried to take me.”, and Clint would still be left reeling from that reveal when Steve was carrying Natasha into the jet and over to Bruce, and Sam and him were helping Pietro in after them.

\--

Natasha flinched and then groaned in frustration, falling back into the pillows on the bed with a glare on her face that was directed towards her still unresponsive leg. In the door of the med room, in the private corridor for the Avengers on base, Clint bit back a smile and moved over to the chair he had left only half an hour ago to get a shower and make sure that Wanda was able to keep Pietro from leaving the bed until he was balanced out.

“Be patient.”, he advised and green eyes shifted to glare at him, but he sat down and poked her side to have her sigh and relax again, “Bruce is already working on an antidote to speed up the process, you won't even have to wait until it's worked itself out of your system.”, and though she knew all of that already, Natasha grumbled under her breath again and pulled the sheet over her head, Clint rolled his eyes.

It was astonishing how your view of the famous cold-hearted Black Widow changed when you saw her hurt or injured or sick for once, because deadly dangerous Natasha could turn into a whining little child in no time when something wasn't going how she wanted it to go, doubly so when her body betrayed her need for perfection.

Clint wasn't saying that he himself was any better, but at least he didn't deny it, leaning back in his chair, he stared at the white sheet until Natasha was speaking again.  
“Isn't it great to have an advanced body.”, she gritted out between her teeth and Clint slapped a hand against her arm in admonishment, “Can't get the flu, but faced with tranquilizers and she goes down like a horse like everyone else. Yeah, good move, Red Room.”, she went on.

“Tasha.”, Clint said and tugged on the blanket until Natasha's head appeared again, “Stop acting like Lila and get your head in the game again. I got the techies on the footage we salvaged, Steve, Radcliff and Tony are interrogating the prisoners and that is seriously a job we could use you for. And Sam and Rhodey are dealing with clean-up and are calling me every fifteen minutes because of jurisdiction problems, but I can't get my thoughts on straight, because my best friend is driving me insane.”, that confession got him another glare, one he sent right back and Natasha huffed out a frustrated breath.

“Why me? That is what I am asking myself, and this wasn't spontaneous, Clint, I know you figured that out already as well. Rollins was waiting for me, lured me into a trap with tricks I shouldn't have fallen for but did anyway.”, Natasha explained and Clint nodded, dragging a hand over his face.  
“Because they triggered memories.”, he brought her thought to an end and Natasha snapped her head around to stare at him, “I staid behind when they flew Pietro and you back to base, because I had a hunch, just like I suppose you did when you saw those corridors.”, Natasha nodded and he continued, “It was staged, this whole attack was a simple plot to get you, or at least that's my opinion, Steve and Tony are more upheld on the weapons that were taken.”

“What do you mean with staged?”, Natasha wanted to know and Clint grimaced, but then went on to explain anyway, getting more comfortable in his chair.  
“I followed your path up until the point where Rollins cornered you, and something felt off right away. Tasha, Riyadh.”, and as Clint spoke the word, he could basically see how the memories flashed through his former partner's mind.

The damp corridors, the dark corners, the distant humming sound, the echo of your steps that sounded fake. The red emergency lights flickering in a rhythm that was just that bit off of random. 

“Saudi-Arabia.”, Natasha echoed the tentative tone from his voice, “Of course, it looked familiar, and it triggered the goddamn need to get to the girls before the time runs out. And of course Rollins and Rumlow would know, they were right there with us, they ran into that damn trap with us back then. Говно! These bastards. But why not kill me, why try and take me?”, was her next question and Clint tensed, focused his eyes on the unmoving foot of his best friend and spoke.

“Because you're the missing puzzle piece they need to get the Red Room under their command. You're the reward, Tasha, the welcome gift. But I swear to you, I will never let them get you, do you hear me?”, Clint asked and leaned forward, reaching for her hands as Natasha stared at them with wide eyes, “Just like all these years ago, they will have to get through me to get to you. My promise stands, Natasha, they will never lay a finger on you ever again. And you have a team now, and Yasha is on our side now.”, he reminded her of the protector she had now aside from them, and Natasha nodded.

She had a heart, a big one, Clint knew that, everyone always saw the weapon and the perfect agent she had been turned into, the childhood that had been taken, but he had always seen different. A strong woman, a good person, a human who was fighting because she was scared what losing would mean for her.

But just like all these years ago in a burning Budapest, Clint Barton would make sure that the Red Room would never get their Widow back. Natasha was his now.

\--

A couple of days later, they had maybe not worked entirely through the shock of that sudden attack and the reveal of a planned kidnapping attempt on Natasha, but had focused their energy on finding solutions and new strategies, Steve had changed training and Clint had in a hope of distressed worry about more possible Hydra controlled super soldiers sent word out to their ghost. 

They desperately needed Barnes' experiences and memories and intel on Hydra, how far their research had already gone, how far was their serum developed now, how close was it to Erskine's formula. Just what the fuck were they dealing with now.

Staring at his phone, Clint glowered and glared at it, ignoring the stack of fresh filed he had to sign in order to ease Radcliff her job.  
“Come on, buddy, help a man out.”, he begged the unresponsive phone, the old one, the one that gave Tony those twitchy eyes and full body shudder whenever he laid eyes on it, but it was the one from Clint's time before Shield, a number many old contacts had and still used to get in touch with him. Old contacts he had immediately reached out to while sitting next to Natasha in medical, old contacts he was now waiting for a call back on.

The team was already down for the twice daily training session, where Steve played frustrated piggy in the middle Strike style, meaning he was guinea pig for every single one of them to heighten their abilities in dealing with a super soldier intend to kill and not protect them. Something they could seriously need Barnes for. Rumlow and Rollins had been a threat before already, of course, their experience, their abilities, their instinct, their trust in each other, that had been a dangerous combination before, but now where Rumlow was juiced up as well, it was simply lethal, and Clint hated to be in the dark, to fuss around in the shadows with no way of getting more information.

It had been a long time since Natasha and him had to work like that, and neither of them really missed it. So when his phone buzzed with a message, his hands instantly scrambled to pick it up.

'Am close to where he was last assumed to be, gonna take a look and try to deliver your message. We're even, Barton.' - Bobbi

Well, what do you know, ex-wives were useful for something. Sighing and smiling in relief, Clint shoved the phone back into the bottom drawer and then grabbed that bow that had already been leaning against his desk. Grimacing at the stack of files, Clint nevertheless stood up, “Gah, sorry Sammy, one more staff complaint today and I'm gonna fly off and shove them up Fury's ass myself, no can do. Maybe tomorrow.”, he grumbled and then rushed out of his office, calling for Jarvis to lock up, he needed to let off some steam now.

Late as he was to a training session started two hours ago.

\--

Down in the training's hall, Steve had given up on getting something done some minutes earlier, despite the dark clouds of doom over their heads, he could understand that the team needed a break and their complete lack of focus today was a good sign for that. Rhodey and Sam could barely shut up over the game they were planning on taking Vision to, Natasha and Wanda were planning a trip to Malibu to visit Pepper while beating him up.

Bruce had opted out right away after only five minutes of being in the same room as Tony and Pietro, because their resident genius engineer and their newly re-powered speedster were on a really good roll. Tony, equally thrilled and annoyed by Pietro's returned speed, reflexes and cockiness, had started out a whole new round of stupid silly nicknames, and considering how similar they were, Pietro was annoyed by it just as Clint had been, before he had simply given up.

Legolas, Katniss, Merida, Robin Hood, Pit, Cupid. Clint wasn't even blinking anymore, just took them as they were meant as, signs that Tony cared. Pietro though hadn't reached that stage just yet and was getting more agitated with every passing minute of Tony's teasing, steadily grumbling under his breath and glowering at Tony repeatedly pulling out new ones.

Roadrunner, Speedy, Quickie, Silver Racer were his favorites, but obviously not Pietro's, and so Steve found himself keeping them apart in their spitting contest instead of effectively working out, but just as Tony reached for the really dumb jokes, help fell from the sky...or better say jumped down from the ceiling.

“Quicksilver.”, Clint's voice broke through the squabble and Pietro whirled around to look up to where the archer was dropping down from the vents, landing lightly on his feet not far from them, and his annoyed frown melted away into a grin, “Sounds less like a comic doodle, hm?”, the older man grinned.

“Quicksilver.”, Stark tested the name out on his own tongue and Pietro caught his sister mouthing it herself when Clint came to stand next to him, “I like it, has a ring to it. Well, then, Speedy, welcome to the world of awesome alter ego names.”, Pietro growled low in his throat.  
“I though we just agreed on a name. No more stupid nicknames.”, Tony laughed and went to pat his head, grinning only brighter when Pietro slipped away and hid himself behind Clint, or as best as he could what with being taller.

“Oh, buddy, you'll have so much to learn, but fortunately you got Tweety here to guide you along.”, Clint's small smile slipped away with Tony's smirking bird taunts, swallowing them repeatedly from the one guy he had idolized half of his life was one thing, part of him felt actually honored by him, even if Natasha called him idiotic, but having Stark pull out the old really stupid ones again was just no.

“Pietro?”, Clint spoke up, without glancing over his shoulder, keeping blue eyes firmly fixed on Tony's grin, and he just knew that Pietro was doing the same as he hummed in response, “Get my trick arrows?”, he asked and half begged, Tony's grin faltered.  
“On it, Sir.”, Pietro called out and disappeared in a swirl of wind against Clint's ear.

And Cap dropped his face into both hands as Pietro dashed off and Clint advanced on Tony, while Natasha and Wanda rolled their eyes and took off, seemingly not willing to encourage their stupid behavior, and Sam and Rhodey merrily cheered them on.

\--

Later when Maria Hill was done reprimanding them for starting superhero fights in the corridors of the Avengers base, and Pietro went back to his rooms with his first written reprimand in hand, Clint and Tony still bickering behind him, he still couldn't help but grin upon seeing the new addition to his name written out for the very first time.

Pietro Maximoff – Quicksilver

“What are you grinning about?”, Clint asked, throwing an arm around his shoulders, smirking himself, Tony shuffled off towards the living room, but they walked on.  
“Feels nice.”, Pietro smiled and instead of ducking his head when he caught proud blue eyes, he straightened his spine now.  
“The alter ego name or being an Avenger?”, Clint wanted clarified, opening the door to his rooms and pushing Pietro inside, the younger man flopped down on the couch.

“The name thing, don't think I can call being an Avenger just nice.”, Pietro snickered, pulling out his phone, watching out of the corner of his eyes how Clint moved to the fridge, pulling out two beers, “Actually not sure if I even know a word yet to describe that feeling.”, and he grinned as the older man held out the bottle, taking it and placing it between his legs while he typed a quick message.

“Trust me.”, Clint began as he sat down himself, “I'm still searching myself.”, Pietro looked up and grinned, quickly looking down again though when his phone buzzed with an incoming message. Clint glanced over at him when he groaned where he had previously searched for something to watch on the TV, “What's up?”, in response Pietro flicked the phone over to him and took a huge sip of the beer.

'Sounds nice, Quicksilver, but don't think code names are getting you out of doing the dishes now, big boy. Doing them quicker only means you can do more in the same time frame. And stop letting Clint drag you into trouble.'

Clint groaned himself when he saw the message, but smiled when he saw the deeply satisfied and peaceful grin on Pietro's face in the next moment, “My name is Quicksilver and I'm ready.”

\--

A couple of days later, Clint, Pietro and Wanda had just gotten back from a trip to South Peru where Barnes had left them another former Red Room operative, all sweet tied up and hung out to dry, and Clint found himself skipping down to the labs while Pietro and Wanda were leading their prisoner down to the interrogation cells.

Down to where a very eager former operative was sharpening her nails in preparations. Natasha would crack him in no time, and despite how much fun it was to watch her do it, Clint had other plans for the time being. Plans that included “My all time favorite engineer, how are you doing, Tony?”, he called into the lab as he strolled through the open doors and Zachary Calder popped up from behind the workbench, grease on his face, wrench in his hands and eyebrows raised.

Standing with his back to Clint, Tony didn't even move in surprise anymore, just snorted and kept on working on the schematics in front of him.   
“Got another present?”, he asked though when Clint flopped down on the chair next to him and glanced over to him for a moment, raising an eyebrow upon seeing the glee on the archer's face.  
“Got someone actually.”, he answered and Tony abandoned everything immediately, whirling around to face him properly.

“What? And there was no assembly call? No, hey guys, wanna come up and make sure he doesn't believe someone is pissed at him here? Shit, did someone call Steve? I knew I shouldn't have let him go with Radcliff to Washington this weekend of all times.”, blinking upon the word vomit coming his way, Clint snapped out a hand when Tony went to rake his through his hair and tugged hard enough on one wrist to get the dark haired man's attention.

“What the hell are you talking about, Tony?”, he wanted to know, in the background Zachary was still frozen, Dummy chirping in confusion next to him.  
“Barnes. I'm talking about Barnes of course.”, Tony answered and it was Clint's turn to raise an eyebrow.  
“Barnes? Do you honestly believe I would be sitting down here with you if I just brought Barnes in? Are you crazy? I like you, man, but if I had to choose between the Winter Soldier and you, it's definitely not you I would be after.”, Clint shot back and Tony gave the spinning chair a kick to send him rolling off, “No, but seriously, he left us someone to interrogate, Red Room operative of the newest generation, send him down to Tasha.”

Recovered from the ego blow, Tony chuckled and closed off his schematics, Zachary handed the wrench back to Dummy and then waved goodbye, sensing that this was a more private affair between the two Avengers.  
“She's gonna love that, isn't she? But what are you doing down here, gotten enough of seeing her bite?”, Tony quipped and Clint smirked as he got back to his feet and walked over to stand next to their genius again.

“Nah, got a question for you actually.”, Tony hummed for him to go on, “Or it's more a nicely meant demand. I need a phone, one not too difficult to handle, one like Steve got from you. Not trackable from our side, but equipped with my number and able to receive the assemble calls unless one turns off the alert. Internet access but unable to be hacked from outside parties.”, Tony started walking over to a drawer at the side of his workshop, while Clint kept leaning against the workbench, following the movements with his eyes, “And I kinda need it to have the fingerprint access only option as well as a voice recognition option in case that one hand is occupied.”

“That one hand?”, Tony called out in befuddlement, stopping his rummaging in the top drawer and looking over to Clint again, “Why not use the other...ohhhh.”, he got it with his next breath and Clint smirked, “You want to give the Terminator a way to reach out to us.”  
“Yeah.”, Clint responded in the affirmative, “Yeah that, wanna make it easier for him to get a message to me. It's sweet how he ran down half of my old contacts and terrifies the shit out of them to get a simple list of coordinates and bird insults to me.”, Tony smirked in reaction to his grumbling and pulled a simple sleek black Stark phone out of the drawer.

“Let's see what we can cook up then.”, Tony said and walked back to the counter, hip-checking Clint further to the side, so he could work, “But I'm in charge of ringtones.”  
“Yay.”, Clint deadpanned and then groaned when Tony sent a very trigger happy smirk his way.

\--

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it!   
> I'm always open for feedback and questions!
> 
> In the next chapter someone turns up on base that no one had expected.
> 
> But until then watch out for another Interlude that will come in the next days, something that I decided to add into this when I saw the Civil War trailer, and I think a lot of people need a hug now, Steve and Tony included. And even though this fic is clearly an AU now, I still think a Stony moment is needed.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	16. Interlude: Big, Blond and Beautiful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here we have the promised Interlude where Steve makes a discovery about his desires

Interlude – Big, Blond and Beautiful:

The water was cold, ice cold and there was no way out for him anymore, he could feel himself freezing. The ice slowly building, starting at his feet, crawling up his skin, caging him in. He couldn't even turn his head anymore without really putting effort into it, and where was his strength...

“Isn't it nice, Cap?”, Rumlow's voice was taunting him and once more he came into view, crouching down in front of the glass cage they were holding him in, “All of us together again. We should call this Strike united.”, the dark haired man continued, reaching out to pet Steve's head, and Steve couldn't do anything but glare.

“It's beautiful, don't you think?”, Rumlow spoke and got back to his feet, passing by the kneeling bodies of Bucky and Agent St.Oaks, their eyes distant and empty, and Rumlow walked further to Steve's left, passing a hand through the unbound red hair of Agent Viktora, who was kneeling obediently next to Jack, her green eyes focused on him only.

“So much power and so much potential for destruction in one room, and everyone is following my command.”, Rumlow said, stopped in front of Julie Seaway and had her head snap up with a single gesture, allowing him to stroke fingers over her cheekbones, “And you couldn't stop it, Cap, because this is how it is meant to be. Hydra is meant to succeed, and no Avenger can stop us, but you just had to learn the hard way, didn't you?”, the glance Rumlow threw to the scene on Steve's right was something he wouldn't have to follow anymore to know what he would see.

Death.

Natasha, Wanda and Pietro bend over a bullet ridden Clint, a single gunshot wound to their heads. Sam still reaching out to tug Sammy back, both of their hands still reached out towards Steve.  
Vision blown to pieces, still turned to protect Rhodey, but having been too late.

And Tony.

Lying so peaceful in the remains of the Iron Man suit, looking as though he was only sleeping.

But no one was sleeping, they were all dead.

“And now, you will follow.”, Rumlow laughed and not a second later, Steve plunged into the water, head going under and he was sinking. Sinking and sinking down into the dark and with every foot the ice took more and more control.

It crawled along his limbs, seized him by the throat, punched his gut, slit his skin.

His eyes fell shut and he could feel his heart slowing down. Once more, he could count every last beat, could feel the cold seeping into his skin, into his blood, racing along his veins until its icy claws reached his heart.

Only this time, there was no fight left in him, no serum rising up to let him live.

This time he was all alone.

This time, he was dying.

\--

Steve woke with a scream, bolting upright on the bed and throwing the blankets off of himself, hands still trashing to find something to hold, and it wasn't until he felt the strength of the headboard under his fingers that he could take a first breath again.

Gasping in fresh air, he knelt on the bed, shirt and shorts plastered to his skin with sweat, he was completely soaked through, and every breath burned in his lungs, and it was just so goddamn cold. Why was it so cold? Why was there still ice when he was out of the water? What water? And why was he shaking?

As the door crashed open, Steve threw himself off the bed and reached for the lamp on his nightstand, flinging it towards his potential attacker. But in the now open doorway, Tony ducked just in time and raised his hands.  
“Hey, there! It's me, it's Tony, Steve. No one is attacking you!”, came the quick soothing explanation and Steve slumped back onto the ground, muscles going lax as Tony slowly approached him, hands still raised to show defeat, “You with me, Stevio?”

Why was Tony talking so quietly? And what was all that noise around him? And why was he shaking? Why was it so cold?

Steve saw Tony kneeling down next to him, and when had he laid down on the floor, and he surprised himself when he reached for Tony's hands like a drowning man.  
“Hey, hey.”, Tony's voice got louder and a little more frantic to get the point across, “Steve, you're gonna be okay. It was just a dream, you hear me? You're fine, you're home.”, Tony squeezed his hands and Steve tried to open his mouth, tried to speak and ask what that loud noise all around them was, but nothing came out.

He could only breathe and breathe and breathe.

“Jarvis, can you raise the temperature a little more?”, he could hear Tony speak again and then his friend's face was right above his, “Hey, big-blond-and-beautiful, you are having a panic attack, okay? But you're gonna be okay, I just need you to breathe with me right now. Do you think you can do this?”

Panic attacks? Steve's mind was racing, he hadn't had panic attacks in months, he hadn't had nightmares like this in even longer. Why did he suddenly have panic attacks again?

“Steve!”, Tony snapped and Steve tried to switch back on focusing on him, only then realizing that Tony had placed one of Steve's hands on his chest, “I said I need you to breathe with me now, do you copy, Rogers?”, he wanted to, he really wanted to, “You just gotta have it the hard way, don't you?”, Tony continued with gritted teeth and then took a deep breath, drawing the air in and then slowly out and Steve felt it all under the palm of his hand.

He tried to follow, but he could only draw a breath in, not out.

Why couldn't he breathe out?

“I can just about see you realizing what the problem is, Steve, now focus on me and let's fix it, huh?”, Tony tried to joke, but he wasn't smiling, still breathing in an overly emphasized way. Brown eyes were watching him and despite the burning pain in his chest, Steve felt himself slowly relax, because Tony was here, Tony was here again and he was looking at him, no longer shying away.

“Tony...”, Steve somehow managed to croak out between his hyperventilating breaths and Tony quirked his lips into a small smile.  
“Hey there, you, no talking, breathe for me.”, Tony admonished him and Steve slipped his eyes close, let himself be grounded by Tony's presence, “There we go, never thought I'd be so relieved to hear you breathe out. You're okay, Steve, it was just a dream.”, Tony soothed him some more and as his breathing finally evened out, Steve let himself be tugged against a strong chest, “It's okay, just a dream, Steve, just a dream.”

\--

Half an hour later, it was easy to see that Steve was still pretty shaken up as he shuffled into the workshop behind Tony, immediately turning to walk to the old couch where he had sat often enough already, drawing or doozing or just watching Tony as they talked.

Now Tony tried not to stare too much, gave Steve some room to get his head together again, instead he walked over to one of the cupboards and crouched down to look for a blanket, because despite the thick hoodie Steve had thrown over, he was still shivering. He was waiting for the awkwardness to well up again, for the need to arise to slip away from blue eyes, they had barely talked to each other in the last weeks, avoided to look at each other and had preferred to spent any time outside of work with one of the others instead of with each other.

And Tony had never felt so alone in his workshop.

But now Steve was here, trying to curl himself into a ball smaller than he really was, and Tony had to bite his tongue to keep himself from spitting out questions after questions. When Jarvis had alarmed him to Steve's heart rate spiking into dangerous territory during what appeared to be a nightmare, Tony had dropped everything and raced up to the quarters corridor he shared with Steve and Bruce.

And shit, seeing Steve like that again, caught in a full blown panic attack, it had nearly send him right into one himself.

But now Steve was here, and Tony could actually fix things.

“No, Dummy, gotta need to do this alone, try and make some coffee instead?”, he apologized to his bot who had approached with his claw outstretched for the blanket, but Dummy simply chirped quietly and then rushed out of the workshop, preferring to make the coffee up in the communal kitchen ever since Tony had stopped trying to hold him back from leaving the workshop.

Dummy was like the base pet now, even though Jarvis usually held him restricted to the Avenger's only corridors, it wasn't rare that Tony would find Dummy in Clint's or Steve's office helping out when he needed him for something. 

Picking up the blanket and standing up again, Tony let himself smile despite the shivering mess Steve presented, curled up on the couch, “Jarvis, up the temperature.”, Tony commanded, tugging the blanket around Steve who blinked up at him, small frown upon his face.  
“Tony, don't, you'll only sweat...”, he protested but Tony waved it away, patting Steve's arm before moving over to the table.

“You never complained about that before.”, he quipped and then winced, okay so maybe it wasn't all perfectly normal again, their harmless flirting felt strange now, and it should, Steve had a girlfriend, Tony was single, it just felt wrong.  
“Don't do that.”, Steve spoke up quietly, burrowing deeper into the blanket and Tony threw a look over to him, raising an eyebrow, “Overthinking everything, I told you that nothing changes for me.”, Steve reminded him of the conversation they had had only three nights ago, when it had been Steve waking Tony up from a nightmare as he had fallen asleep in the workshop.

“You're still one of my closest friends, Tony.”, Steve continued when Tony remained silent, staring down at his feet suddenly, “If not the closest of them all. We've been through the end of the world twice now, together, we can't go on pretending that that doesn't push people together.”  
“You love Sammy...”, Tony breathed out and dared a look over to blue eyes, and despite the curled up protective position, Steve's eyes looked sincere and strong.

“I do. I love her, I'm happy with her, but that doesn't mean I don't care about you as well. You're my best friend, Tony.”, and when Steve wriggled a hand out of his cocoon and patted the side of the couch next to his head, Tony sighed and walked over, despite how much a large part of himself was screaming to run, run away from talking, run away before any emotions could come up again, but he couldn't.

He couldn't because it was Steve.

And he would never run from Steve again, no matter how much it would hurt.

So Tony sat down on the ground, drawing his knees up to his chest and leaning back against the couch, head only inches from Steve's face.  
“I can't understand how you are doing it.”, the billionaire admitted, brown eyes staring up at the suit schematics on the hologram over the workbench.  
“Accepting that my best friends has feelings for me? Tony, we're not 15 anymore, and I know and have it on good record that you're not a homewrecker.”, Steve answered and Tony closed his eyes, threw his head back until he could look sideways into blue eyes.

Steve was right. He wasn't, not anymore. His heart wanted Steve to be happy, and Steve was happy, so Tony was happy. He had friends, a family even, a safety net to fall back on, and he had not only survived the whole feelings confession mentally intact, he had also not lost one of his best friends. But still, Tony needed to shift the topic into safer regions, so he breathed out and spoke, turning his eyes towards the workbench, “I am making something for Sammy actually. There has been some tension lately, thought I could try and make it up to her.”

“I can assure you that Sammy doesn't have any ill feelings towards you that go above the general 'He is driving me crazy' attitude that Maria has as well. She is stressed, apparently some stuff with Shield, but she won't even talk about it with me, says Clint is helping her, which is funny because Clint has no idea he is doing something for her and is actually completely too swamped with work to take on anything more, and oh my god....you are contagious.”, Steve ended his rambling with a low groan and Tony snickered.

“No, but seriously, what are you making for her? She does not need a pen that can shoot bullets or laser beams, seriously.”, Steve warned him and Tony laughed louder.  
“Jarvis, pull up the project for Radcliff, won't you?”, he called out and still didn't leave the strangely comfortable position on the ground, especially when Steve shifted and propped his chin up on Tony's head.

“Do you want me to interrupt the paint process or would the schematics suffice, Sir?”, Jarvis wanted clarified and Tony cursed his timing, but then asked after the schematics and perfect as he was, Jarvis projected the hologram right in front of them within reaching distance, and Tony waited patiently until Steve had had a chance to look at it. It was kinda genius the whole thing, but it certainly didn't look like something Steve might recognize without help, no one would really.  
“What the hell is that?”, came the expected response from Steve then and Tony reached out to twist the mini-fridge like automat around.

“It's a lipstick computer.”, he said and the chin that got pressed down on his head indicated quite well that Steve preferred more words, “See that small terminal here? You tell the computer which color you want and it throws it out, and once you're done, you stick it in here again and the computer sorts it right back into the right place. You told me Sammy always takes too long to get ready because she complains about being unable to find the right lipstick, well voila, problem solved.”, Tony concluded and behind him Steve was very quiet.

“She's gonna love it, but you didn't need to.”, Steve reminded him and Tony rolled his eyes, twisting around again to look at Steve's face.  
“I know, now stop being all responsible and be happy for her.”, Tony ordered and Steve gave him a sloppy salute, rolling onto his back, blanket covering from chin to toes.  
“Yes, yes, Sir.”, he agreed and then they both froze and blinked at each other, because wow, talk about reversed roles for once, and god that felt weird.

“I'm gonna go and...work some more.”, Tony decided out loud after a moment of awkward silence and then briskly turned around to go back to the suit plans. But it didn't stay awkward very long, because as he fell back into creator mode, Steve brought light conversation back and soon enough they were talking and laughing as the sun slowly rose up outside.

\--

Steve fell back asleep sometime around seven am, and Tony left him to it, they were the only ones on base anyway, aside from the analysts and the usual staff, but it was Sunday and no one was really working, so they could do one day without Steve available at every goddamn hour. He moved his own work over into the second room of the workshop, told Dummy to stay with Steve and then closed the door, he could after all work better with music but there was absolutely no reason to wake up Steve.

Guy needed his sleep.

God only knew how many times he staid up for them.

\--

The image of her gasping and panting above him, straddling his hips, lips flushed, eyes blown wide and dark brunet hair flowing over her bare shoulders, it was something to keep in memory, something cherished for those long weeks she was gone again. A memory he treasured already while he let his hands ghost over the bare skin of her thighs up over the trembling muscles on her stomach until he could wrap fingers around her waist on both sides, pulling her stronger down upon himself.

Sammy breathed out a moan and threw her head back, grinding down on his hard cock, her hands splayed out over his chest, her whole body flushed with heat. And though they were still wearing their underwear, Steve could already feel every inch of her, his brain screaming for more and more.  
“My precious Sammy.”, he moaned and Sammy keened her back, pushing her breasts forward again, lips falling open as the tanned hand slipped around her waist from behind.

And Steve groaned in pure bliss as dark hair appeared behind his girlfriend's back, full lips kissing a path up Sammy's skin until they reached the softness of her neck. Brown eyes fell open as Tony opened his mouth and bit down on soft skin, making Sammy scream hoarsely and Steve buck up against her.

“Look at him.”, Tony's voice sounded rough as he whispered into Sammy's ear and straightened behind her, straddling Steve's legs as well, pulling Sammy back flush against his naked chest, his hands roaming over her bra covered breasts and stomach, stopping at the waistband of her panties.  
“Look at him, Sammy.”, Tony demanded again and Steve moaned when he caught sight of his girl's brown eyes filled with lust and desire, “Ours. He is ours. Left to our mercy.”, Tony drawled and Sammy gasped suddenly, throwing her head back onto Tony's shoulders, her fingernails scratching down Steve's chest.

And when he glanced down, he saw Tony's fingers disappearing behind the blue fabric of those lace panties, working slowly over Sammy's clit. His other hand crooked up two fingers and begged Steve to come closer, and completely pulled by strings by then, Steve shifted his hold on Sammy and sat up, one arm coming up and reaching around her to stroke over a strong shoulder. Tony smirked and caught his lips over Sammy's shoulders while she gasped and moaned between them.

\--

Steve snapped his eyes open with a gasp, his breath still coming in quick pants, he could feel the sweat on the back of his neck and the way his shirt clung to his chest. He was also painfully aware of how hard he was and how much even the tiniest movement brought along a friction against his sweatpants that let his whole body thrum with arousal.

Shit.

Shit. Shit. Goddamn Fuck.

His brain was still stuck with the images of his dream as he struggled out of the blanket enough to sit up, dragging both hands down his face, hard, and then he froze when he became aware of the very familiar laughter coming through the small gap in the glass door to the backroom of Tony's workshop. 

Or as Steve liked to call it: 'Dummy, get the fire out' – room.

“Oh my god, Stark, you're a genius.”, Sammy was saying in that moment as Steve spotted her standing across the table from Tony, her profile grinning and awe-struck at the same time, eyes glued to what Steve couldn't see really but what he assumed to be the lipstick computer Tony had built her. There was no reply from Tony, which told Steve that the engineer was really trying to not be a dick again.

Pulling the blanket around his shoulder and just being so deeply thankful for it being long enough so that it covered his front and still prominent hard-on without any effort, Steve got to his feet. He needed a shower, a cold on, a really really damn cold one and then something mind-numbing. Or mind-blowingly distracting, exactly that. Take a shower and then watch those shows Clint recommended him, that should do the trick.

If only he could sneak away before anyone...

“Steve, honey, you're awake.”

Fuck.

Glacing to his right where he had tried to hurry over to the door that would lead him directly to the elevator that would bring him directly up to his floor where no one would be able to disturb him. But he was caught, Sammy smiled at him from the now open doorway of the second room, her eyes still beaming with joy over her present, and Steve just couldn't do this. He could not stand here and smile at her and pretend everything was alright when he had just had a fucking sex dream about his girlfriend and his best friend.

Buck, Steve thought to himself as he was completely frozen and watching Sammy walk over to him, if there ever was a good time to come out of the shadows, now would be perfect.

“Hey, you okay?”, Sammy frowned when she was close enough to see his sweaty face and his for sure blown wide eyes, “You look a little heated, honey.”, his sweetheart continued, reaching up a hand to feel his forehead, while Steve was still trying to reboot his brain, “Stark, does he feel hot to you?”, and good god, can you phrase it any worse, Steve cursed on the inside, taking a lot of willpower to not let his brain drift off again.

Get a grip, Rogers.

Tony, alarmed by the question that no one should be asking about Steve's health, came jogging over and suddenly Steve had two hands flapping about his forehead and cheeks.  
“I'm fine.”, he muttered the second he had his tongue under control, his mind a constant string of 'get out, get out, get out', “Just had another nightmare.”, he explained and prayed they were buying it, and seriously, first time Tony and Sammy were in one room without one of them throwing dark glances at the other and Steve was flustered from a sex dream involving both of them.

Distraction, now.

Assemble call, right now.

Clint calling, please.

Just something.

“Are you sure?”, Tony and Sammy almost asked at the same time and Steve could have screamed in joy, if it wasn't for the fucking amount of awkwardness.  
“Yeah, I'm...I'm sure, just need a shower and maybe a day off. Was a rough night.”, so maybe not directly lying was the best decision because Sammy's face turned soft and understanding and Tony looked pensive, but not in that 'I know you're hiding something' kind of way.

“Hey, how about you take one of the cars and spend the weekend away, you could both use a break.”, Tony proposed and both of them went to protest immediately, something he stopped at the root by putting a hand over their mouths, a rather suicidal move that thankfully did not have consequences, Sammy had no qualms about biting, Clint knew that himself only too well.

“Clint will call the second we have anything on Robo Ghost that leads to concern or drastic actions needing to be taken. You both have a phone that I would advise you to take, even take the goddamn shield and guns. And I have an AI, and wonderful only too happy to help friends who will gladly lend me a hand if something comes up in our project. No excuses, you need this.”

“Thank you, Stark.”, Sammy thanked him for the both of them because Steve's brain was just a mess at this point, “Come on, honey, I'll come up with you, can use that shower too.”, Tony winked at Steve over Sammy's head as she turned to lead him out of the workshop and Steve felt his entire body flush bright red.

He was in so much trouble.

\--

tbc


	17. Broken Trust and a Destroyed Friendship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of drama, I am sorry in advance

To Captain Rogers and Agent Barton,

I am proposing a meeting to discuss a potential alliance between Shield and the New Avengers Initiative. I have many reasons to believe both agencies would profit from such a decision.  
Please contact me to arrange a time and place that suits everyone best.

Sincerely,  
Philipp J. Coulson  
Director of Shield

\--

When Sammy found the email in her inbox on her work computer, forwarded to her not from Steve's personal address but the official one for Captain Rogers, she immediately knew she was in so deep trouble. And when she scrolled down, her suspicion got confirmed.

'My office. Right now.'

The mail had been send eight minutes ago, so she send a quick apologizing look over to Zach waiting with the forensic reports before she scrambled to her feet and rushed to the elevator. Steve would already be furious enough, letting him wait any longer would only rile him up more and more and Barton...well Sammy was already dead, why worry about Steve.

She had lived in lies and excuses for over a year already, stretched her loyalty because of orders from people who weren't her boss anymore, because of wanting to protect something that had always been so dear to her heart. 

But now she could only hope that Steve would be able to understand.

\--

"How could you?", Steve wasn't yelling, not yet, but his voice already had that well known edge that told Sammy that her boyfriend (and boss) wasn't from it anymore, and she sighed and slumped further down into the chair. At least Barton was off base still and unable to receive emails for the time being, one more hour to live.

Steve kept on pacing in front of the windows, one hand constantly raking through his hair, letting it stick up in every direction, he looked cute, in a maniac kind of way. Stark, whom Steve had pushed into his desk chair as the news had drained all color from his face, he was still staring numbly at his hands. And why did this have to happen with him in the room, as if she wasn't competing with him enough already.

Things had improved a little since he had stopped distancing himself from her, and her own blooming friendship with Pietro made the time easier that Steve spent with Stark. Didn't mean her jealousy became any less prominent, it only meant that Steve had his own reasons to get green eyed over her now. And angry sex wasn't her favourite kind of one on one time with him.

Things were just marvelous right now.

"Steve, please, you have to...", but her third attempt ar explaining things got cut off as well, Steve bristled and the worst thing was, Sammy couldn't even blame him. She understood, oh she understood so well, and she had reacted in the same exact way when Maria had told her what all those secret missions and plannings and files were for. All this time that Sammy had believed to be doing favors for Fury's work in Europe, all this time she had believed that Maria was just helping him build up Shield in the underground again.

But no, it had been Coulson. A Coulson who was not the man she remembered.

This had all been going on way too long, and she should have done something sooner instead of letting her loyalty become twisted towards the man who didn't deserve any of this. None of them did. They should have known, but she couldn't change things now, and she would have to face the consequences of her choice to lie.

"I don't have to understand anything. You knew for months, kept it quiet from everyone for months and didn't even think a warning was necessary for this mail. What do you think would have happened if Clint had read this?", Steve snapped and Sammy winced, for good reason. Not because of his anger, she knew it was only partly directed at her, that the real targets for his anger were Fury, Maria and Coulson, who had played the Avengers like puppets again.

And Barton? Barton was going to lose it.

"I can't believe that everyone was kept in the dark about this.", Steve went on and he sounded so horribly exhausted suddenly that Sammy wanted nothing more than to reach out for him.  
"Maria...", she tried again, but once more didn't get to finish her sentence, blue eyes zeroed in on her and let her freeze on the spot. This wasn't Cap, nor was it Captain Rogers, this was all Steve. Steve being angry, Steve being disappointed, Steve being hurt.

"Yeah. Let's not talk about Maria right now.", he deadpanned and Sammy dared a glance over to the computer screen where Jarvis still showed the live footage of Maria being escorted to the car that would bring her off base and to the closest airport. Indefinite suspension, basically exiled, probably better she was gone before Barton and Romanov came back anyway.

"Steve, I followed orders. I did my job.", well, she was nothing if not equally stubborn as little Stevie from the back-alleys of Brooklyn, she would not sit here silently.  
"Tell me, Sammy.", Steve turned quiet, that dangerous low tone in his voice that Romanov had taught him for interrogations, but she wasn't sure if he did it on purpose or not right now, and he walked closer to her again, stopped right next to her before he continued, "Are you a Shield agent or are you working for the NAI? Because frankly, both has never been an option.", and that just sounded so much like an ultimatum that she shuddered.

"I'm not...Steve...", he must have sensed that he was freaking her out, his eyes softened immediately at the carefulness in her voice and he dragged both hands over his face, falling to his knees in front of her, reaching for her hands.  
"I'm not mad at you, Sammy. A tad bit disappointment, but you're not the one I want to yell at right now.", Steve explained and Sammy felt her body unfreezing, when he tugged her gently forward until their foreheads were resting against each other, "I'm sorry, but you have to understand that this is a bomb. Clint and Natasha will freak out. Tony....well, you can look at him yourself. Coulson's death made us a team, andnow we get to know that he did not die after all. Lies over lies again, Sammy."

"I know.", she whispered, glad to have him close, glad to have him just for yourself for a short moment, "What's going to happen now?"

He smiled crookedly, leaning up to press a kiss upon her nose before catching her eyes again, "I think it's best if you leave for a few days. Until Clint has calmed down, until Coulson was here. I don't want you to get in between any fronts.", she went to open her mouth to protest but he pressed a finger upon them softly, "I know you can hold your own, I know, trust me. But this is something personal, this is Clint who will see red the moment this news reaches him. This is Clint who has been lied to again, by the person he trusted the most at Shield aside from Natasha. I'm not risking you coming between Coulson and him if it comes to blows."

"And you don't want to call it suspension?", she asked quietly and he grimaced, "I understand, Stevie, I do. I did something wrong, I lied to all of you, I have to stand up for it now, and I will. I can explain...", and he interrupted her frantic babbling again, kissing her to make her shut up, he was good in that, kissing whatever rant she was on right out of her mind.  
"Coulson can explain himself.", Steve said when he pulled away again, getting back to his feet and pulling her along as well, "I'm not going to let you be escorted off base. Take a car, drive home or take a hotel, but tell me please where you are going.", she nodded to his plea, "And please understand that I am not doing this to punish you."

"I know, Steve, I know.", she stopped the guilt from creeping deeper into his face, "I actually thinks it's gonna be okay to stay away for a few days. I love you.", she whispered and leaned up on her toes to kiss him again, letting him pull her close.  
"I love you, too. Stay safe.", he spoke into her hair and Sammy knew they were okay.

\--

"What the hell am I going to do, Tony?", Steve breathed out once Sammy had left and closed the door of the office behind herself, pushing both hands through his hair, the blond turned back to look at Tony who slowly raised brown eyes from where he had been staring at his hands. And he was still million of miles away, brown eyes dazed almost.  
"We need to catch Clint before he sees that mail...", Tony spoke quietly and then slowly straightened up, fingers flying over the tablet on the desk, "Jarvis, block Clint's access to the server and override Angie's access as well."

"Will do, Sir. I should also inform you both that Miss Romanov seems very confused and concerned about Agents Hill's and Radcliff's departure from base.", Jarvis informed them calmly, but Steve and Tony both groaned, dragging a hand down their faces in perfect sync.  
"We need to tell them. Natasha, Bruce and Clint, they need to know this before anyone else.", Steve almost stumbled over his face, pacing once more, movements frantic, "But how the hell do you tell someone that the person for whose death they are still blaming themselves is alive afterall. Tony, I can't do this, I...", but while he had panicked, Tony had stood up and walked over to him, stopped right in front of him and slapped both hands upon his shoulders.

"Let me do it.", Tony asked of him, "I'll talk to them, maybe it'll soften the blow at least a little bit if it comes from someone who knew Coulson longer.", the idea wasn't bad, but Steve could still see that Tony was far from being okay and not shaken up by this.  
"Are you sure? I can...", he tried but got interrupted quickly, Tony grimaced a grin, but nodded.  
"Yes, I am, concentrate on the five thousand calls you want to make and write that answer email.", and Steve grimaced right in return, "Yeah, I know. I'm going to kill Fury.", Tony grumbled and then stepped away, picking up his tablet before walking to the door.  
"Only if you manage to get to him first.", Steve called after him and Tony chuckled darkly.

"Don't try and tempt me."

Outside in the corridor, after closing Steve's office door, Tony almost ran into Pietro as the younger man came around the corner from the elevator on his way to what Tony supposed was Clint's office, the only other room up here on the top floor of the administrative building next to Tony's own office and Steve's. The Avenger's leading offices Natasha liked to call the top floor.   
"Hey, Clint's looking for you.", Pietro greeted him, shifting the files in his hands, Tony sighed, even before the kid continued, "Seems like he can't get into his email."

"Come on.", the billionaire groaned through the words, prompting Pietro to raise both eyebrows at the honest weary exhaustion in it, "Let's bring those files into the office and then find Clint. There is...Something came up and I think it might be good to have you around when I tell Clint.", Pietro was gone and then back again without files only two seconds after Tony had stopped speaking.

\--

Crash

Steve had half a second of warning when he entered the training's hall before the arrow came flying towards him and he quickly ducked, letting it embed itself in the thick metal of the door. Jumping back to his feet, he let his eyes shortly fly over the amount of destruction in the hall, impressive really, for a human assassin in only five minutes.

He found Tony and Bruce sitting patiently but pissed off themselves on the benches in one corner, the newbies behind them, while Natasha was standing with arms crossed over chest in another corner. He started to walk over to them, but never reached them because the furious voice of his teammate stopped him.

“Did you know? DID YOU KNOW?”, Clint snarled and sent another stack of lifting weights crashing to the ground, Steve had to admit, he had never seen him so out of control.  
“No, I didn't.”, he was quick to reassure Clint and the others, for everyone suddenly looked towards him, “I swear, I didn't, Clint. I'm just as angry as you are.”, Steve clarified, catching Tony's still wide blown eyes, little red.

“I doubt that.”, Clint snapped and roared to push over a table, “God, I am so sick of all these secrets.”, he reached for his bow once more, having dropped it only a second after shooting at Steve, and Steve saw how Natasha quickly looked over to Pietro. The speedster didn't need a word of motivation and just swooshed down to take both, bow and arrow out of Clint's hands.

Clint hissed but only balled his fists in frustration even as Pietro stopped only a couple of feet from him, Steve finally walked over to Tony and Bruce.  
“Why are you so angry and the rest of you so calm?” he addressed first Clint who simply huffed and kicked at the turned over table, before looking over at the other older Avengers.  
“I think the shock hasn't quite settled yet in most of us.”, Bruce offered calmly, while Tony snorted and buried his face in Steve's shoulder as he sat down next to him, Natasha kept quiet.

“Sure, the shock hasn't settled yet. Is that what is making you sleep at night, Banner?”, Clint continued to seethe, but Bruce merely rolled his eyes, Steve knew the archer's anger wasn't directed at any of them, but all of them knew that it was better to keep this between them. To not let it reach any innocents, “Sucks for me that people seem to come back from the dead as if it was nothing if I was involved in their demise in the first place.”, Clint continued to rage effortlessly, Pietro ducked when a bottle came flying his way.

“SHUT UP!”, Clint roared when everyone seemed to want to open their mouths in protest against his words, on the defense immediately, “Shut up, shut up, shut up. I don't want to hear it. Not even for a second. I let Loki play with my mind, I led him straight into Shield. I let him play his games, I did not stop him. It was my ultimate fault that Coulson died.”, he dragged both hands through his hair, “Or not as it turns out. So I am quite sure that I have all the good reasons to be just mildly pissed off that no one saw fit until now to tell us that Phil was fucking alive.”

Steve was relieved to have send Maria and Sammy off base for the time being, he didn't want any of them in the cross hairs of Clint's fury, even though he was disappointed in them himself, but Clint's pain ran deeper.  
"Want to spar?", he found himself calling out to his co-leader despite the loud alarm signals in his head and the raised eyebrow of Natasha upon his words, but Clint whirled around to look at him, shaking with anger and Steve had his answer.

\--

That night, Clint hadn't even tried to sleep and Pietro had silently settled himself on the couch with him, ignored all words of protest until Clint had finally stopped complaining and accepted the comfort. They watched some movies and Pietro was really starting to relax by the time Clint stopped being so twitchy and stood up to get some beer from the fridge.

But that was about when things turned really south.

Like Antarctica South.

One second Pietro was watching the even worse sequel of the sequel of that Matrix movie with drowsy eyes, cuddled into the blue blanket, and in the next he was jumping to his feet and rushing over into the kitchen as Clint started screaming. And right from the first look at him standing by the kitchen counter had Pietro realize that something was really really wrong.

Clint's eyes were blank, completely unaware of anything around him, and he was shaking with pure terror, at his feet a glass bowl full of popcorn had exploded into a thousand shards upon crashing to the ground.  
"Clint?", Pietro called out, frozen in his shock, but still not too far off to not dodge the glass that came flying towards his head in the next moment.

And then Clint lost it.

Pietro was flashing left and right as Clint unloaded the whole cupboard of glasses onto the kitchen floor, cutting his hands and feet in the process, every careful attempt of Pietro's to get closer only resulting in another angry outburst. And when he dared and came close enough to touch, he learned his lesson as Clint grabbed him roughly at both shoulders and slammed him against the wall, blue eyes not seeing him at all, snarling angrily.

"Dad?", it fell from his lips in a choked up whimper as fear rooted itself in his bones, but instead of finally breaking through whatever spell laid on him, it sent Clint into a real frenzy.  
"Pietro, get back.", Natasha announced her entrance with a knife that embedded itself only inches from where Clint had last stood at the eastern wall by the fridge and shocked as Pietro was he flashed behind her.  
"But...what is going on?", he wanted to know as Tony arrived as well, both of them still wearing the outfits Pietro had seem them in last hours ago.

"Just get back, seeing blue is not good right now.", Natasha advised, staring with tensed limbs at Clint's eyes roaming around the room, assessing the situation, looking for enemies, and the true amount of shit they were in unraveled in front of Pietro's inner eye.

Loki.

Clint had murmured his name sometimes today, ever since the news about Director Coulson's not death had made the round, and he had spaced out, but Pietro had thought it was the shock of a friend still being alive, not the memories of what had led to his death.  
"Shit.", he cursed and Stark squeezed his shoulder once as he passed by, leaving Pietro no choice but to stumble over to the couch again with trembling legs.

"Tony, take his hands.", Natasha ordered in the kitchen and Pietro closed his eyes as the screams started up again, it wasn't Clint's first flashback that he witnessed, but this time it somehow seemed so much worse.  
"On it, Nat.", Tony yelled over the sounds of Clint yelling bloody murder and more glass crashed as three adults struggled with each other in the small kitchen, Pietro clamped both hands over his ears.

It seemed to last hours until Clint's screams and yells died and a deafening silence lasted over the apartment once more, and when Pietro reopened his eyes, he saw Clint lying on the ground in the kitchen, Natasha straddling his hips, pressing one hand over his heart and the other to his pulse point on his neck. Tony was kneeling in the shards at Clint's head, holding both hands in an iron grip as he whispered something down at him.

\--

Clint snapped back to himself with a loud and painful sounding gasp for air, his breath rattling in his lungs as he pushed their hands away and struggled to sit up, his hands flying out not to fight anymore but to find a hold over himself. One going down onto the ground, steady hard ground, the other wrapped around Natasha's wrist, a warm steady anker, finger tips immediately sinking into the steady calm pulse.

But now where his mind was back in complete control over his surroundings, he could see the broken shards of glass and he flashed back to the pair of terrified blue eyes being forced back against the wall by his own hands.  
"Pietro.", he croaked out, pushing the glass of water away that Tony held out to him, his eyes whisking left and right to find the kid, "Where is Pietro?", don't let it be true, don't, oh please don't, he couldn't have hurt him, he couldn't have, not another one, not....

"Shh.", Natasha read his mind as always, "He is fine, Clint, a little spooked, but okay. He is in the living room.", words received and understood, Clint pushed her gentle hand off of his shoulder and let go of her when he pushed himself to his feet, shoving Tony off in the process as well. He needed to see Pietro, he needed to see the kid, he needed to see that he was alright.  
"Let him go.", Natasha called out and Tony stepped to the side, revealing the door to the living room that hadn't been closed since Wanda had burned the fish months ago.

Clint stumbled over, opened the door and then stumbled right along further, spotting Pietro curled up on the couch within the next split second. Big blue eyes looked back at him, the kid wrapped up in a blanket and Clint rushed over.  
"I'm sorry.", he said, falling to his knees on the end of the couch and pulling Pietro up as much as helping him scrambling up to sit upright, and then he was inspecting his face, his neck, his hands, anywhere he could have hurt him, "I'm so sorry, son, I'm so sorry."

"It's okay.", Pietro quietly replied, and behind him Clint could sense Tony and Natasha approach, carefully, afraid to set him off again. Clint didn't say another word, just pulled Pietro close and held him, holding himself together mostly, needing to ground himself in the knowledge that he hadn't hurt anyone again. He heard Tony excuse himself while Pietro clung to him return, quiet sobs of relief being muffled into the crook of his neck, Clint tightened his hold, letting his mind reach out to Wanda, needing her here as well.

"Go calm Steve and Bruce down?", Natasha asked quietly and Clint supposed Tony to have nodded because in the next moment the door closed and Natasha slowly moved to sit down on the smaller couch. Jarvis surely had alarmed Steve, if not the others right along when Clint had lost it.  
"You called me Dad.", he had no idea why his scrambled brain and messed up emotions chose exactly this moment, a shivering and shaking Pietro in his arms, to blurt that revelation out.

Judging by the way Natasha ducked her head down to catch his eyes staring numbly at the way his finders clenched tightly in the blue fabric of Pietro's shirt, she was rather convinced that he had done it finally, gone and lost his damn mind. But Clint knew his brain was working on complete scrambled emotional survival mode right now, letting him latch onto the pieces that could set his world back together again.

Natasha was here, Natasha could keep him safe. He could focus on his head.

And his head wanted what had always been safe. Family.

"You called me Dad. Again.", he spoke up once more when Pietro remained silent, going completely tense and quiet in his arms, while Clint's mind flashed back to a moment a week ago, when Pietro had screamed himself awake from a nightmare, "I'm an idiot.", Clint admitted and Natasha snorted, standing up when it knocked on the apartment door, Clint could feel the soothing presence before she let Wanda in who rushed over in cloud of red swirls, wearing her pjs and the soft sweatshirt Clint had been missing for two weeks.

No, nope, focus back on mission, brain.

Deal with the damn jacket later.

"Do...are you okay with it?", Pietro whispered almost, and god how much this had shaken him again, Wanda came over and crawled under the blanket Natasha had thrown over herself, both of them watching with wide awake eyes. Clint choked for a second on too many emotions at once but then pushed Pietro slightly away so he could look into those suddenly so unsure eyes.  
"Am I okay with it? Okay?", he chuckled, grinning despite the bone deep exhaustion and frantic paranoia threatening to slide his body in two, "Seems like they are right, takes one idiot to help another. Piet, do you honestly believe I called you son all these months because I kept forgetting your name? Of course I am okay with it."

\--

They watched nearly the whole list of movies Clint and Pietro had lined up for the next month in that one night, no one even thought of really sleeping. Somewhere around three am, Steve came by and set a tray of fresh coffee on the table, Dummy rolling by him with a broom towards the neatly destroyed kitchen, quietly going to work and going so far as to close the door to not disturb them. Little guy had more manners in one claw than his creator in his entire thick stubborn head.

And when dawn came along, they all went their separate paths again, all four jumping into the shower in their respective apartments to just for one second pretend this day would not be full of shit.

It was Tuesday. 

Seven am.

In two hours, Coulson would arrive on base.

\--

Of course Clint would take the news the hardest, Natasha was less surprised than the others over his outrage, shocked herself deep down to her core on why Fury had made the decision to keep it from them for so long after New York, she still was more worried about her former partner's mental state. It had just looked good, looked like going up again and now Loki was suddenly overly present again to haunt their every minute. She could basically see the demons taunting Clint with every breath he took.

He had been an agent the longest among them, had been with Shield the longest, had been part of the system the longest. The whole Hydra fiasco had already hit him the hardest, because it was the most personal for him, he had trusted these people to keep his family save. And now Coulson. Natasha knew that Clint and Phil had been more than just agent and handler, right from her very first moment as a new Shield Agent, right from the second Clint had dragged her broken self in front of that Agent Coulson, had she seen that they had been friends as well. 

For Clint, Coulson's death had been more than just personal and the guilt had only added up with everything else that had followed. Coulson's death had been the starting point for Clint's spiral out of control. Only to be faced with more lies now where everything seemed to finally go back to normal, or as normal as their lives could ever be. So when later that day, they walked out onto the airfield to welcome Shield's director and old friend to their new home, and Clint wasn't among them, Natasha didn't think too much about it. Steve might mutter silently about what it portrayed to show up with one missing, but she knew Coulson. And Coulson knew Clint. He would know what it meant and he would understand.

Instead she kept an eye on Wanda, Sam and Rhodey who had been briefed on what exactly had been going on, on what had happened and what had apparently not happened. Vision kept himself in the background, Jarvis's memories enough to have him know how deep the betrayal must feel in them. The only one seemingly calm as could be and collected and not shocked or confused was surprisingly Pietro.

She didn't need to be a mastermind to figure out what that meant, but it still made her wonder how much Clint had shared with the speedster to help him with his demons. A quinjet approached the base and they all straightened up while it landed, and it was then that Natasha caught the quick look Pietro threw over his shoulder up to the third story balcony of the building behind them. On the balcony, where a lone figure stood with arms crossed over his chest, quiver strapped to his back, bow slung around one shoulder. Standing and looking down at them with a cold face. A mask. A mask not good enough for her though, because Natasha could see the pain on Clint's face.

\--

When the ramp of the jet lowered and revealed Coulson standing in his all too familiar suits at the top end of it, a bag slung over one shoulder, Natasha's whole body twitched, and Bruce had a hand on her elbow immediately. He looked...he looked just like ever, aside from the whole mechanical hand kind of business, but Natasha couldn't think of that for now.

He was alive.

And he was right here.

Steve and Tony didn't seem to fare much better, both a little pale and completely tense all over as they watched Coulson step down and then walk over to them. When he was close enough for his taste, he stopped and as he opened his mouth to speak, everyone seemed to hold their breath.  
"Surprise?", Coulson tried it with a small smile, but Natasha could see how Tony opened his mouth with a biting snarky comment, eyes narrowed, Steve and Rhodey both reached out to stop him though.

It wasn't the real surprise though.

That came when Pietro suddenly flashed by her right and Wanda's hands flashed red on her left, one second later, Pietro was standing next to Coulson, arrow held in his hands, wide eyes looking over all their shoulders up to the rooftop patio of the cafeteria. They all whirled around, except for Natasha who kept her eyes on the shellshocked face of Phil for a moment before slowly turning her head to look up at Clint who was slowly lowering the bow before vanishing inside.

"If it is any consolation.", Wanda spoke up, eyes on Steve and Natasha as everyone breathed out slowly and turned back to Coulson, "He did warn me and he was aiming for the bag.", she explained and offered a small smile, Steve and Tony both groaned.  
"Welcome, Director Coulson.", Steve then turned his attention fully back on Coulson who blinked and whipped his gaze away from the now deserted rooftop and back onto Steve.

“Pietro!”, the silver haired boy's head snapped up and blue eyes easily found Steve's, “You're on Barton duty.”, lips slowly pulled themselves into a smirk, but before Steve could have said another work, Pietro vanished into thin air, “But don't do something stupid.”, Steve added as it was already too late and Natasha turned to smile at him.  
“You're gonna regret that.”, she sang almost and then turned to walk away with Bruce and Wanda. Phil turned to look at Steve, but all he got as a first response was Steve dragging both hands through his hair and a groan that sounded more fatherly annoyed than really angry.

“Don't even ask.”, he pleaded and Coulson shrugged his shoulder, shifting the bag he was carrying higher up. Sam and Rhodey threw a quick look over to Tony who waved it off.  
“I know Barton, Cap, I don't have to ask. Kid supposed to make sure he doesn't shoot anyone?", Coulson tried to joke but no one looked amused, the tension was almost touchable, everyone shifted on their feet, only Vision remained unmoving.  
"He is most likely going to encourage it and wreck some havoc himself to try and cheer Clint up. Just...maybe don't try and talk to him anytime soon.", Tony butted in from Steve's right, sporting a pokerface himself, Phil winced, and as such didn't see how Tony reached up a hand and pressed some hand signs into Steve's back.

"Stark..."

"Yeah, keep it, I don't want to hear it.", Tony snapped with way less fire than Steve had expected, instead his voice with laced with an icy coldness, there was no challenge to rise towards, only the walls rising up incredibly high.  
"Tony.", Steve and Rhodey soothed at the same time, but it was Steve Tony looked up at for a moment before he straightened his spine even more and pulled out his phone.  
"Trust me, no other plans than behaving. I have work to do, talk to you tonight.", and with that Tony turned on his heels as well and strode off, grabbing Vision's wrist and pulling the confused looking guy along. 

Steve closed his eyes for a short moment and then turned to look at Coulson again, whose small smile had entirely slipped off his face by then.  
"Well, that went well.", Sam commented and stepped up to take Tony's abandoned place next to Steve, Rhodey saved the awkward silence by stepping up to offer his hand to Coulson, who shook it gratefully.

\--

They sit in utter silence for a whole two minutes, just staring at each other, daring the other one to make the first move. Steve was patience and stubborn, he had dealt with Bucky all his childhood, had then dealt with Bucky and the Commandos for months, and now he was dealing with Tony Stark and Clint Barton on a daily basis, patience was the only way not to strangle them sometimes.

But Coulson had had that job before him.

Didn't mean Steve would be the one to talk first.

He had spent two of the five days of Tony's and his trip to Madripoor earlier that month not speaking a single word to the genius after Tony had tickled him on the plane right over.

And as hoped for, Coulson broke first, shifting in obvious discomfort in his chair under the relentless stare Steve had maybe taken a little bit from Natasha.  
"I guess you might want to have an explanation.", Coulson sighed and Steve merely raised an eyebrow as a response, "Right."  
"We might as well start with that, considering that I am not discussing politics or alliance decisions without reaching for Clint's opinion first. And that is not something I'm gonna get today. You can talk, Director Coulson, about what you choose yourself, but the Avengers and with them, the NAI, are not going to form an alliance unless everyone is on board with it, and I am wishing you good luck convicing Clint."

Coulson grunted, he was only a shadow of the man Steve had met all these years ago, hard edges now where formerly had been soft but sharp minded gentleness. And he started to talk and explain what he seemed to see as excuses for all the lies, Steve knew for certain that this alliance with Shield had just slid down his list of priorities.

\--

Later that day

\--

"How are you holding up?" Clint froze behind the corner of the entry way to the communal floor as he heard Steve's quiet voice and the gentle tone in it.  
"Trying to process the facts.", Natasha's answer came after a short moment of hesitation and when Clint peeked around the corner he caught sight of Steve lounging on the smaller couch, sitting slumped into one corner, Natasha lying with her feet up in his lap.

"And what are they telling you?", Steve asked some more, they were relaxed, there was nothing visible anymore of the tension they had both held themselves with all day long, not even to his eyes, and Clint wondered just how they were doing it. He knew Natasha hadn't gotten any sleep, he had been the cause for it himself, and he knew from the short chat he had with Tony down in the workshop over breakfast that Steve had staid up with him through the night as well.

Shutting off, pushing things away, pushing this away, being able to see beyond it, maybe that was their true superhero power. Clint couldn't. He still felt his fingers tense on an invisible bowstring, still felt his muscles tense up in preparation for the next punch, could still feel the need to lash out of everything and almost everyone. And he didn't like the instability, it reminded him too much of the first weeks after New York, after Loki, where he had spent too many nights being restrained by Tony and Natasha before he could hurt himself any further.

Natasha replied before his hands could really start shaking, "They're telling me that I'm not sure if I can trust Shield, let alone if I want to.", she said and Clint expected Steve to frown or to immediately demand an explanation, but Steve remained silent and to Clint's immense surprise he even nodded. Natasha continued, "Coulson is not Fury, he has a different philosphy of leadership, always had, and I'm not saying that it might not be the right solution for the long run, but he started his directorship run like Fury ended his. With lies over lies, mistakes were made and I don't think they learned from all of them. People lied to him, and he lied to even more in return."

"How do you know all that?", Steve wanted to know and spoke out what Clint had been thinking as well, Natasha smiled that little half smile of her and Steve smirked down at her.  
"Contacts on the inside", she gave in after a moment, "We might have not always been friends or even friendly with each other, but Agent Morse can be useful and informative.", Steve chuckled and threw his head back.

Clint rolled his eyes.

Tapping her foot against Steve's stomach, Natasha started up again once his eyes were on her again, "Fact is, I can't get behind that again. Not anymore. We nearly lost everything because we lied and kept things from each other, there are no more secrets between us now, or at least nothing substantial.", she added when Steve opened his mouth, "I'm still not telling you where the cookies are, Rogers."

Steve huffed and Natasha snickered, prompting him to poke her bare feet, while Clint grimaced in memory at the conversations with Tony and Steve respectively, grimaced at the fact that he had been declared the one most trustworty with things he really really didn't need to know.   
"But...", Natasha hesitated for a moment with her words, "We learned, Steve, and the consequence should be to think twice before working together with people who don't seem to be thinking along the same lines but should. The contacts Clint and I have? The people Tony gets his intel from? Those are the people you can't expect it from, but Shield should be different after everything that happened. They should have learned.", and once again Steve nodded, Clint's feet were basically glued to the ground.

Every single word spoken right out of his mind.

"And Coulson? What about him? Can you get behind him as a person, completely aside from Shield?", Steve wanted to know next and Clint could see how Natasha dropped her look down to where her hands were fiddling with the wrapping paper of a candy bar, the first physical sign she was giving tonight that this was all affecting her more than she wanted to show for Clint's sake. Steve was quick on the update as well though, reaching out, he wrapped one large hand tenderly around her left ankle, Natasha smiled and looked up again, met his eyes and spoke words that speared their way right through Clint's heart.

"Not right now."

There was a moment of silence between them that Clint used to slowly and quietly sink down onto the floor along the wall, twisting his hands into the hem of his shirt to keep them still.   
"Do you know what you want, Steve?", Natasha spoke up again and Steve shifted, Clint only had to turn his head slightly to keep them in his line of sight.  
"I want what is best for this agency, for my agents, for my team.", Steve answered, turning his head to the side and leaning it down upon the back of the couch, looking at Natasha with tired eyes.

Clint made a mental note to go down to Tony when he was done eavesdropping, if both of them didn't want to sleep they could just as well keep each other company in their sulking and nervous ticks, give Natasha and Steve a night of sleep.

"And do you think Shield's support could be good for us?", Natasha prodded deeper, they had spent many evenings like this already, Steve and Clint asking Natasha and Tony for their opinions and input on problems they were facing within the agency. 

"I don't know.", Steve confessed, "I told Coulson that I can't make this decision alone, that I need Clint's agreement before I anything. And even then we will not make any official and holding decisions until the Avengers stand with a united opinion. And right now, I can't see that happening, without knowing what Clint will say even. Tony is hurt and betrayed, and he is only holding himself back from causing a scene because he believes those rights belong to Clint first.", Steve explained and Clint smirked for a second.

"As far as Stark motivation goes, that one is quite powerful.", Natasha agreed with him in a way, "But Bruce thinks the same, he never trusted Shield, and he would prefer to stay far, far away from it. He only tolerates working under the palms of the NAI because he trusts Clint and you to make the right decisions.", she explained and Steve sighed.  
"You think he will go again if we end up forming an alliance?", he questioned, but Natasha quickly shook her head.

"No, not as long as Clint's and your paranoia will be strong enough to power a whole country. And he would never leave Clint or Tony alone while they are this shaky, he is also way too curious about Barnes by now.", Natasha's words had Steve smily slightly.  
"Sam keeps on repeating that he is so close to packing his things again and going back to DC.", Steve admitted, frowning down at his fingers stroking over Natasha's ankles in the next moment, "Says he'd rather chase demons and ghosts down there than stay in this tension and drama for another day."

"Do you think he will go? That he needs out?", Natasha sounded sad almost when she spoke, Clint knew she liked Sam, they both had gotten along well with him from the first second, but it was also easy to see that Sam had moments where he was completely overwhelmed with the craziness of this new life.  
"I think Sam needs a vacation.", Steve answered, "He isn't used to this, he needs an out, a chance to breathe some normal air for a few days. I advised him to call Laura or let Tony give him some vacation house in Europe for a few weeks.", he grimaced in the end and as expected, Natasha lunged for it with a grin.

"What did he say to that?", she wanted to know and Steve rolled his eyes.  
"He told me to shut up, as if he will leave us alone when everyone is tensed like a tiger ready to attack. Tony told me that Rhodey says the same, says he is on my side, whatever he thinks that means.", Clint had his suspicions on what it meant.  
"He knows Coulson.", Natasha spoke right from his head again in the next blink of an eye, "He knew him for as long as Tony did, maybe not as close but he at least understands what is going on. Have you talked to Vision in the last days?"

When Steve nodded, Clint swallowed in surprise, he hadn't even seen Vision in the last two days, Steve blew out a breath and then talked, "He understands the facts, but he admitted to me that he doesn't have the slightest clue on what kind of emotions are all involved in this. Jarvis knows the history, but he always saw it with the rationality that was programmed into him, Vision has to go from that. I can honestly say I envy him for his clear head at the moment, I wish I could think straight. I've got enough on my plate and desk as it is before Coulson rose from the ashes. I'd rather be out there bringing down Rumlow than sit here and discuss politics.", the last sentence was growled and Clint could relate way too good.

He had heard back from Bobbi, that his message had been delivered but Barnes had been completely silent since then, no sign of him, no word through any channels, not even the slightest guess over the Soldier's current location. It was driving him crazy with nightmarish outcomes and possible explanations.

"Did Vision give you any kind of rational, non-emotionally clouded answer?", Natasha wondered out loud and Steve snorted, beginning to gently knead her feet.  
"Oh yeah, course he did. Not exactly happy over Tony having heard it as well, but what can you do.", Steve sighed, and Clint thought that not spending 12 hours a day together could be a start, but Steve went on, "Vision pointed out that we let us put ourselves back under any part of Shield's thumb, the NAI might mever get the credit and the foundation it needs to be an acknowledged independent agency among the big players. Which Shield isn't anymore and might not be for a long time."

Clint agreed one hundred percent.

"That must have busted your patriotic bubble.", Natasha joked and Steve growled at her, fingers flying quickly, and Natasha squeaked once as he tickled her.  
"It certainly didn't make things easier.", he agreed with her though, "But it's not a thought that I hadn't had before. Pietro and Wanda?", he pressed on and Natasha looked at him, Clint brought up a hand to drag over his face.

"Well, Pietro is clearly all Team Clint, no doubts about that. He might not always agree with Clint, but everything that hurts Clint or even just unsettles him in any way makes Pietro see red. Can't sympathize more with him. Wanda is trying to be more neutral, I think, waiting to know more about things before forming an opinion, her closeness to Vision helps. But both of them will probably never trust Shield , not while Shield hasn't fully shaken off their Hydra tainted past. Coulson might be a good guy, the friend I knew certainly was, but he still worked among Shield's highest circle for decades without knowing what was really going on."

"So, what do we do?", Steve threw the question into the room that all three of them must have been thinking for days already, Natasha pulled herself up and climbed into his lap, curling up against his chest, letting the lost look on his face melt into a gentle smile as he hugged her back while she spoke.  
"We wait how tomorrow goes. Sleep over it, listen to what Coulson has to say again. As long as we don't divide ourselves, we'll find a solution. As long as we stand united, the Avengers, the NAI will have a future. With or without Shield.", Steve nodded to her words and Natasha leaned her head back, looked up into his so exhausted seeming face, "Steve...Sammy and you, you're okay, right?", but Steve didn't answer and Clint wondered what that was all about now, but he left before any answer could have come.

He needed to talk to Tony.

\--

Pietro and Wanda had avoided Director Coulson, just like Clint had asked them to, and even though the man was clearly interested in meeting them both and seemed to have a bunch of questions they were so not interested in answering. Wanda made herself scarce by taking Vision up on a trip into the city to explore a little, something that the protective brother in Pietro didn't appreciate too much, but at least Clint wasn't freaking out even more.

He himself had the least problems avoiding the Shield agent, despite keeping up the normal daily work load at Clint's side, speed was a good avoidance mechanism. But tonight as Clint had made it clear that he would spent the evening and the night down with Tony in the lab and no one was allowed to disturb them, a plot to make sure Natasha and Steve would get some sleep for sure, Pietro had decided to skip off base too.

Meeting a friend.

Sammy opened the door and blinked when Pietro held out the bottle of wine and the Chinese take-out, very slightly shifting forth and back on his feet, he had gotten used to the constant thrum of energy very quickly again after the initial shock.  
"What are you doing here?", he was greeted by, her voice confused and surprised, her face tired, he wondered how much she had slept in the last days. She was wearing a shirt that was big enough that it told him about the true owner of it, sweatpants riding low on her hipbones.

"Well, your boyfriend is busy making sure Clint doesn't kill that Coulson guy.", he pointed out, and on purpose left out that said boyfriend had also suspended her from staying on base for the duration of Coulson's visit. Pietro wasn't blind, he could see that Sammy was wrecked with guilt.  
"So he send you to keep my company?", she voiced in complete puzzlement though, because it did sound entirely absurd, Steve liked him as long as he wasn't spending time with Sammy, because then even always patient Steve could become snappy with jealousy, even though Pietro had zero intentions with her that way.

He liked her, she was a friend, a good friend and he liked hanging out with her. And maybe if he kept repeating that to himself often enough, his heart would stop fluttering whenever she laughed.

She was a friend.

"Course not.", he said therefore, "We both know Steve would rather keep you far away from me. I came because Natasha wanted me to check up on you.", and also because one more hour spent in those corridors, he would have cracked and Clint couldn't deal with that right now, but he kept that thought to himself.  
"And you thought wine was the right way to do that?", Sammy raised both eyebrows at him but still grabbed said bottle, "Jeez, Piet, and you wonder why Steve gets all twitchy with us.", she complained and he smirked, shaking the bag of food lightly.

"Can I come in now?", he wanted to know and she nodded, stepping to the side to let him into her hotel room.  
"Move it, but the bed is mine, take the couch.", she said as he pushed past her, walking over to the small table in the corner to set down the food before taking a look at the simple hotel room. Maria had supposedly gone to stay with Pepper Potts, Sammy had chosen to stay in the closest hotel to the base, mostly because she hadn't wanted to explain to her grandfather just why she had been excused from base for the time being.

"So, how are things?", Sammy asked once they were sitting, movie running in the background as they dug into the food, Pietro snorted and stretched out his legs on the couch.  
"Peachy. Clint and Stark are so much on edge, if Hydra attacked now, they would rip them apart without any help or weapons at hand. Cap and Natasha haven't slept in two days, Sam and Rhodey are wrung thin with nerves. Wanda has a constant headache, Banner hasn't left his lab since Coulson came around and Vision is just...confused. It's going great.", he told her, grimacing upon the guilt in her eyes, "But it's not your fault, you did what you were told to do, you thought you were doing the right thing, even Clint knows that."

"Barton is not angry?", Sammy asked carefully and Pietro chuckled darkly, swallowing another fork full of rice, before answering.  
"Oh he is angry, furious even. Full out inner idolized Winter Soldier got mobilized, total coldness towards Coulson. I have never seen him this pissed off at someone, but not against you.", came the reply and Sammy breathed out a little sigh of relief before she focused back on the movie.

\--

The next day

\--

“You have twenty minutes, I have work to do.”, Clint announced in a clipped tone as Coulson stepped into the office, blue eyes hard and cold as steel, arms crossed over his chest, no suit for now, suited up in uniform, quiver already strapped to his back. Phil suspected that someone, highly likely Natasha herself or Pietro in her command had taken the bow from him, as if Clint wasn't deathly alone with the gun and knives on his body.

“Mission?”, Phil tried to lighten the mood, sitting down on the chair and trying not to think of the endless times their roles had been reversed. How many times had he sat behind his desk at the Triskelion and Clint had shuffled into the office without knocking, falling down on the couch or slumping down into the chair, waiting until Phil acknowledged his presence before whining or complaining about everything and everyone, mostly the women in his life turning his hair gray.

Clint's office here looked nothing like the one Phil had had in DC, it was full of light, large windows letting in the sun, the balcony door was open, letting in some of the brisk breeze. There was a dart board on one wall, the black leather couch was filled with a blue sweater and a book, there was a spare pair of running shoes under the couch, seemed like the Maximoff boy spent more than just distraction duty at Clint's side.

What surprised him most was the sheer amount of framed pictures of children's drawings, he hadn't known Clint had introduced the Avengers to his family...and even more, Phil's mind came to a standstill as he spotted the photo on the desk, framed with a simple black picture frame. The Maximoff boy was carrying Lila on his shoulders, while Cooper – and god how much they had grown – was holding Lucky back from bolting off, and the Maximoff witch was holding a baby in her arms, soft green eyes looking down at the smiling child.

Had Laura...another one? And he hadn't known...

Right next to the picture was an older one he knew from the house, because he had taken it. Laura had thrown an arm each around Julie's and Tess's shoulders, drawing them close, Natasha had Lila on her hip and Cooper shyly leaning against her side, while on her left Clint had squished Sarah to his side, both of them a little grumpy but grinning.

When Clint still didn't say a word after a minute and solely kept his glare on him, Phil tried a different approach, "Classified mission then, I understand. I didn't know the family had grown so much again.", but the smile froze on his face when blue eyes turned to pure ice.  
“None of your damn business.”, Clint snarled and meant it, this was no safety persona, this was no act, he was beyond anger and Phil felt all hopes leave his heart, this would not be resolved in one talk.

“Clint.”, he tried, tried to reach out towards the hurt friend he had missed so much, the friend for whose pain he was responsible. Clint huffed and pulled out a stack of files, flipping through them, making some notes on the side, Phil wanted to ask, wanted to ask what he was looking for what it was he had been sending Bobbi and Hunter after.

He had his opinions though and he didn't know if opening that box was a good idea right now, not with the way Clint was all riled up to go some rounds with him.  
“What do you need discussed?”, came the clipped question not a second later and Phil braced himself for the kind of conversations he hadn't had with Clint in almost twenty years.  
"Steve informed you about my proposal?", he let himself fall into the business talk, Clint nodded, not stopping his work, not even glancing up once, "Well then, I'm here to ask for your opinion, see what you think about an alliance.", Phil asked and Clint's head snapped up so fast that he pushed himself back into the chair on pure instinct.

But still, for a moment he believed they could talk about this like civil adult people, one leader to the other.

\--

That thought sure didn't hold long.

\--

"You told me, you swore to me that no matter what mission, no matter what target, Laura and the kids would always come first. Shield second. Those were your words.", Clint yelled, pressing Phil back against the wall, spitting almost right into his former friends face, because so much had been clear to him since hearing Tony speak those words.

This friendship was over.

"And they were meant for me just as much as they were meant for you.", he continued with the biting accusations, towering over Phil and not caring in the least that gray eyes were widening with fear, or that the hand that wasn't propped up right next to Phil's exposed neck was twitching back for the arrowhead he always kept in his jeans.

Clint hadn't been this angry in very long time.

"You promised me, you promised Laura and Natasha that they would always come first, and that Shield would never jeopadize their happiness, their safety! But of course it was all lies again! Lies, lies, lies!", every word spit right into Phil's face, teeth grinding with every swallow, "You had one chance, and you chose not to take it! Again and again! And I might have understood it once, but not since Hydra jammed out of the shadows!", and he wrenched the arrowhead out of his pants.

He didn't get any further though, because in the next split second, he was sitting in his desk chair, hands bound behind his back, the arrowhead lying on the desk. Blood was pounding in his ears, red coloring every inch of his vision as he tried to fight against the bounds.  
"You didn't even think for a second about the safety of my family! You never for a second gave a single thought to the children who loved you!", Clint screamed and snarled at a still frozen Phil at the wall, Pietro standing between them.

"Dad, I need you to calm down.", the boy tried but none of his words even reached Clint's ears, who just kept on yelling, ramming every single word right into his old friend's heart.  
"You put Shield above them! You put Shield first, you put the fight against Hydra first! Before my children! Before Laura and Natasha! You chose your new team over the people who called you family for over a decade! You lost the girls!"

"Clint...", Pietro tried it again, watching with concerned eyes how fast Clint was breathing, but when he didn't get through, he turned to Coulson, "Sir, I need you to leave.", but one stubborn mule was worse than the other, because Coulson finally found his voice again and pushed himself off the wall.

"I had to make a lot of rough decisions, but everything I did I did to make sure that no one would get to your family.", he shot right back Clint who roared and pushed against the bounds once more, but nothing moved, Coulson went on, "I had to save what was left of Shield to make sure I could continue keeping them safe. I had to do what needed to be done. And I didn't knew about the girls until a couple of weeks ago. We thought they were keeping low, I thought they were safe with you. I didn't even knew about Rumlow until Steve told me."

"Don't make up excuses!", Clint raised his voice even louder, his face flushed an angry red, "You didn't look, you didn't search, you did nothing but look after Shield."  
"Shield would keep them safe, Shield would have the means to find the girls, that's why I needed to save it, because it was the right thing to do. Look, Clint, I understand that you don't trust Shield anymore...", but Coulson got sharply interrupted by Clint who swept the emotionless thousand yard sniper stare back on him.

"No.", he spoke up, calm now, the anger slipping off his face, a blank pokerface taking its place, and his voice turned ice cold, "It's you I don't trust anymore.", and the words hit Coulson like a lash of the whip. Steve came to a stop in the open doorway as Clint set out for the finishing blow, "This is my veto. The NAI is not working with Shield. Take your leave, Director Coulson."

\--

"Give him time.", Steve said as he walked alongside Coulson towards the airfield of the NAI base, Coulson didn't show any real signs that he was heavily affected by the blowout with Clint, but he had learned to hide his emotions well, though the cracks were visible this time. He walked with a pokerface and strong steps, but his shoulders were slumped and he was tense, the behaviour of a man in enemy terrain, and in a way it was true now.

On Steve's other side, Tony was seething, keeping up a steady angry mumbling under his breath, having come along to personally make sure Coulson was gone.  
"I don't think that's gonna be enough this time, Cap.", Coulson replied to his advise and Steve sent a quick sharp look to Tony when he saw him open his lips to throw in his own comment and as hoped the engineer clapped his mouth shut, so Steve could talk again.

He understood the anger, but Clint had made his opinion clear, they didn't need another meltdown, especially not a Stark colored one. No alliance with Shield didn't mean they were suddenly the enemy, they needed to give them time to prove themselves again.  
"Trying won't hurt. There isn't anything you can do, Coulson, without risking to have a Widow stun you senseless or a Stark blast you to the moon.", they stopped at the waiting Quinjet as Steve spoke, catching the elbow that Tony tried to wrench into his side and pushing it gently down again, "And don't get me started on what the twins might be planning already. And Clint had made some very powerful and dangerous friends recently.", Steve warned as well, Tony snickered.

"I guess it is good to know that he has support now, a whole team rallying to take his side, no matter if they agree or not. I just...I'm not used to walk into a building where I'm the outsider and Clint is the one with the unquestioned loyalty, it will...take some getting used to.", Coulson confessed and then flinched when he glanced up over Steve's shoulder, prompting the blond and Tony at his side to turn around. Up on the balcony of the cafeteria, red and brunet hair was blowing in the wind as Natasha and Wanda watched them with arms crossed over their chest.

"It's your own fault, Agent.", Tony snarked back and Steve couldn't help but nod along, Coulson reached up and dragged a hand over his face, the first sign of defeat and even despair since he had left Clint's office.  
"I know.", he admitted, "Doesn't make it any easier. I always had to defend him, protect him, from himself and others. It's not necessary anymore.", he pointed out and a quick glance to his right told Steve that Tony was probably thinking back to the same moments with a completely distraught and guilt wrecked Clint after New York that he saw flashing by his own inner eye. It wasn't necessary anymore because Clint had been forced to move on, to grow up and fight every battle for himself.

A task that had led him straight into Pierce's path and almost to his death in Africa.

"You brought them a long way, Cap.", Coulson sighed, "I hope that in the future Shield will have proved itself trustable again, and that until then we can act without getting into each other's ways.", Steve nodded at him, he hoped the same.  
"We'll see.", Tony grouched from the side, but Coulson actually smiled at the snark, finally a familiar gesture and he nodded at them once more before boarding the jet.

Steve and Tony stepped back and both took a deep breath of relief when the jet took off, standing shoulder by shoulder, arms crossed over their chests, mirroring the stand of their female teammates up on the balcony.  
"You know.", Tony spoke up again after a moment after the Quinjet had vanished in the clouds, "Bruce has a bottle of whatever poison Thor calls his drinks, how about we grab Clint and get wasted?", brown eyes glanced up at Steve's face, "Natasha looks like she might want a shot as well, the kids can take the wheel for one night. What do you say?", Tony wanted to know, and Steve slowly turned to him.

"Grab Bruce, I'm getting Nat and Clint, my room, ten minutes."

\--

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, before anyone yells at me.   
> I wanted a different turn on the Coulson is back from the dead storyline, because in my opinion Clint has some reasons to act on anger instead of relief to have Coulson back, especially because the Coulson from AoS is no longer the Coulson we saw in the Avengers.  
> They'll get it together at some point, but for now there is some fire and tension all around.
> 
> Another remark to the AoS plot: I am setting my story into the MCU verse up to and uncluding Age of Ultron, and though some characters like Bobbi Morse and Lance Hunter might make an appearance again, I am not taking any of the events from AoS as canon, no Skye, no Ward, no Inhumans. I'm not making it any kind of priority to find out how the TV show would fit into my story. I'm sorry if that bothers anyone.
> 
> In the next chapter, we're making two field trips, get some new revelations and more bad news.


	18. A Lost Cry for Help

"Why did I have to come again?", Clint whined for the sixth time in the last hour and Steve gritted his teeth to keep from snapping the same comment back to him that he had used the last three times. Around them people kept on moving, students rushing to their next class, agents and instructors alike talking with colleagues or students on their way back from the cafeteria.

The new Shield Academy of Operations.

"Because in times of mistrust and tension, it is good to appear united to not raise any suspicion over internal disagreements.", Steve recited without thinking about it and Clint nudged his sunglasses down a little to raise both eyebrows at the taller blond man, Steve grumbled, "Peggy had words, lots of words for me.", Clint snickered and pushed his sunglasses back in place.

Coulson had forwarded them an invitation some days ago, to come by and take a look at the new Academy facility for field agents and special operatives. Natasha and Tony had backed out immediately, grabbed the first mission and flown off with hair flying, Steve and Clint had not been impressed, but had gone alone in the end, Clint more kicking and screaming than willingly. His mood had only improved when Steve had told him on the ride over that Coulson would stay clear of them even though he was in the Academy presently, that he had sent a student to guide them and that Steve was wholeheartedly planning on stealing at least two students as new recruits for the NAI.

And Clint was all about pissing Coulson off at the moment.

"Alright.", he said then, throwing the coffee-to-go cup into a trashcan and positively throwing their cover of civilian clothes with the weird angle, instantly students began to whisper, Clint ignored it, going on instead, "So who is the lucky guy who gets to lead us to the fresh meat?"  
"Girl, and that would be me.", a voice spoke up from behind them and Steve and Clint both turned around in almost sync, looking down at the brunet girl with the strict ponytail, wearing the dark blue Operation's uniform, "Welcome to the Academy, Captain Rogers, Agent Barton."

(They had tried finding something else, but despite his own adversion to the title, Clint was unable to respond to anything else, total subconscious unwillingness to react.)

"Rita.", Steve smiled immediately and reached out to shake hands with the girl, while Clint held himself back and waited to be properly introduced, not that he hadn't recognized that face already, she looked very much similar to her older sister. Steve turned to him a moment later, "Clint, meet Rita Radcliff, Sammy's sister and recruit number one.", Steve explained and though he took her offered hand, Clint still gaped at Steve for a second, before curling his lips in a thick grin.

"You came here already knowing whom to take back? Jeez, Rogers, why didn't you say so earlier?", he smirked and Steve rolled his eyes, next to them, Rita waited patiently.  
"Because I have to deal with Tony's ego on a daily basis, it felt good to have someone sulking for a little while.", Steve replied cockily and Clint only kept himself from kicking him in the shin because they had already the attention of almost every person in the entrance hall.

"Well then, show us around, make it quick, I know the history and then lead us to where we can get person number two, and then we're out of here again.", Clint declared and Steve did not hold himself back from shoving him once.

\--

An hour later they were watching the rookie students train in the gym, and Clint's mood had improved majorly. Coulson had made good on their promise and they hadn't run into him or anyone of his team on their tour, and Rita's story over why she had agreed Steve's proposition to come and join the NAI had lifted his spirits as well, apparently Grandpa Radcliff wasn't very keen on seeing his youngest granddaughter within Shield when she could be working with the Avengers.

Something that sat well with Clint's ego, considering that Grandpa Radcliff had been Fury's mentor and a former Shield Director himself.

"Okay.", he said, leaning forward with his forearms on the railing of the walkway they were standing upon, "Shouldn't be too hard to find a good kid.", he wondered out loud, eyes switching between the sparring and stretching groups of students, next to him Steve snorted.  
"I'll leave this one to you then. Each of us takes on, sounds like a perfect balance.", he offered after a moment and Clint's smirk turned devilish.

Steve watched how Clint shrugged off his jacket and raised an eyebrow, “What are you doing?”, on his other side the dark haired girl looked curious and slightly impressed and definitely awed when Clint flexed his arms over his head in a quick stretch.  
“Doing it old school way.”, he answered and grinned, catching sight of Coulson coming to stand at the windows on the left side of the walkway, someone must have alerted him to the two Avenger's plot of stealing his people, not that Steve had any qualms about his plans.

“Doing what old school way?”, Steve pressed further and send a quick apologizing and only half embarrassed look over to their new recruit.  
“Finding out who is good enough for us.”, Clint quipped and then took a little jump to swing himself up on the ceiling beam, “Leave this to me, Cap. Not everyone has girlfriend connections to find what they are looking for.”, he grinned down at them, winked at Steve and then dashed off, balancing on the beam until he was in the middle of the training's hall.

Steve glanced over to his left and fought against the urge to facepalm, Coulson looked curious and was almost smiling, and he couldn't wonder what Clint was trying to prove here. A loud whistle sounded and in the next second Clint dropped down from the ceiling, down low into a crouch, two knives drawn, grin plastered onto his face, all around him the junior agents froze in their places.

“There is a place in the Avengers Initiative. Last one standing gets the golden ticket.”, he announced, turning up the smirk even more, then flipped his knife twice and pointed it at the cocky boys duo, “You, first.”, and then as Clint brought both idiots down onto the ground within three seconds of them attacking him, Steve finally found his amusement again and leaned forwards against the banister.

It went on, and recruits dropped like flies almost, and in the middle of it all Clint looked like a kid on christmas morning, grinning, twisting, flipping, dropping, dancing almost. Coulson had long ago raised a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, shame for his junior agents clearly on his face, and Steve was chuckling. And then suddenly it was over as fast as it had begun, groaning junior agents were standing and laying by the benches on the right side, all clearly knocked down on their egos for real and for good, and only one remained.

A girl. Curly brunet hair pulled up in a ponytail. Small, but lean and quick on her feet. And while he saw the girl fighting against Hawkeye, twisting out of his reach with instinct and not experience, hitting not to kill but to disarm, Steve couldn't help but be reminded of Natasha and Julie Seaway, and he knew they had found the right one. And Clint had seen it as well because with a raised hand he finally brought the fighting to an end and the girl stopped on the spot, the knife she had taken from him got lowered away from his throat while she gasped for breath, exhaustion only showing now. Flipping it around she offered it back to him, but Clint only smiled and looked up to Steve, who nodded back at him once and then watched how he lowered his hand again and made no move to take his knife back.

“Keep that. What's your name?”, Clint asked as the girl tucked the knife into the holster at her hip, before shyly smiling up at him.  
“Megan Davies-Falsworth, Sir.”, she spoke, clearly without a stutter or an uneven breath while up on the walkway Steve nearly toppled over the banister, Clint widened his eyes, well what a joy.  
“Interested in a new job?”, Coulson was banging on the window and obviously shouting something but Clint completely ignored him, snapped his fingers once to keep the girl's attention on him as well. She blinked, once, twice and only then managed to nod, completely transfixed.

“Perfect, because a person with your family history is not working for Shield. Welcome to the NAI, Megan.”

\--

Clint had been a teenager once, of course he had been, and contrary to what Natasha had gone through, he had in a way been allowed to be wild, to make stupid decisions, to live and not regret a day. His life had never been normal though, he had spent his rebellion on the street, behind the scope of a rifle, behind the curve of a bow, hunting down targets, waiting for that one paid shot.

His rebellion had been chasing after ghosts, had been listening to the pleading words of a man without a name instead of the harsh orders of his mentor. He had never seen the inside of a high school until a mission shortly before New Mexico, so he had no personal experience with high school drama and first love and teenage fights over nothing.

But if Sam was to be believed and he usually was, then Steve and Tony had reached the stage of Junior Year dramatics that had everybody eye-rolling and staying far far away. They either got along perfectly and drove everyone crazy, or they fought worse than teenage girls and everyone jumped for the hills to get away. (Clint knew by now that Rhodey and Sam kept emergency overnight bags in each others apartments in DC.)

Everyone but Clint.

Clint who knew Tony's secret, Clint who knew Steve's secret, Clint who couldn't go, Clint who wanted to pack a bag and go ghost hunting so bad when Tony stormed into his office one morning, roughly two days before a planned trip to Israel. Apparently Steve had called his latest upgrade to the suit 'interesting' which had obviously in Stark's ears translated to 'I hate it'. 

Clint of course always listened and nodded at the right moments and then offered to talk to the other one, and he helped, because god beware them of what would happen if they really started fighting against each other. 

\--

But whatever argument had broken out between Steve and Tony Clint had not really listened enough to get the reason), it vanished exactly as undramatic and unexpected over one night as the awkward silence between them some weeks ago, and Clint was eternally grateful for it when he stepped onto the Quinjet one afternoon a week before Christmas, because otherwise this upcoming trip would have been a horrible pain.

Or in other words, it would have been hell to be stuck in a plane with Steve and Tony, and only Pietro as support for eight hours and then stuck in Israel for a couple of days, so yeah, extremely happy that they had stopped acting like five year olds again. Not so happy about the thick smirk Tony sent his way when he dropped his bags next to Pietro and let the younger man store them away safely for the flight.

"Look at you, Clint.", Tony drawled and Clint rolled his eyes, shuffling past the engineer to look how Steve was doing with the pre-flight checks, behind him the ramp moved up, and outside the engines started up slowly, "You clean up nice for a change.", and upon Tony's leer that he could feel upon himself without even looking at him, Clint glanced down at himself and the grey suit, perfectly ironed and sitting absolutely without a single wrinkle, tight in all the right places.

It looked official and so horribly good that he hadn't even been able to say no to Wanda and Natasha when they had forced him into it, because they were on official business, and even Steve and Tony wore suits. Black ones, they looked distractingly good, only Pietro got away with wearing jeans and a simple shirt and jacket, the advantages of youth.  
"Thanks, Tony.", Clint grumbled nevertheless and slipped into the pilot's seat when Steve shifted over into the co-pilot's one, "That's what you get for turning up as Co-Captain Barton instead of superhero and agent Hawkeye.", Tony groaned in annoyance over being taken too seriously again and slumped down in the seat behind Steve.

"Clint is right, though, Tony, we are flying to Tel Aviv in official Avengers business as much as we are separately going out for our own projects. This is not only a pleasure visit.", Steve joined their conversation, throwing a look over his shoulder to make sure that Pietro had sat down as well before he gave Clint the green light for take off and continued, fiddling with the tie without noticing, "We are presenting the NAI, a newly formed agency going to play with one of the big gamers in the intelligence community, if not the biggest one by now. The Mossad is the only major agency who hadn't been infiltrated by Hydra, they have a good reason to be smug.", listening to Steve's explanation, Tony threw a look over to Pietro and rolled his eyes.

Pietro snickered and got more comfortable, "You know, Cap, we were all sitting in that briefing.", he sighed but Steve didn't even seem to hear him.  
"They didn't want to form an alliance with Shield, said repeatedly that there will come a time for renewed trust, but it's still a long time in the future. And considering that we rose from the ruins of the old Shield's ashes...", as Steve talked Tony was mouthing along and Pietro was biting his lips to keep from laughing, steering the plane Clint tried to ignore them, "...we must understand it as a great honor that they are offering to talk about an alliance with the NAI."

And as Tony groaned and threw his head back, Clint decided to join in as well, prompting Pietro to bury his face behind his hands, "The ties between Shield and Mossad have always been very frail, even before Hydra-gate, and most of the communication ran through Strike in the last years, and that was only because of Rollins' ties to them and the friendship Rumlow and Sarah cooked up with some of their leading officers. Which means right now, we have nothing to fall back on, this is all ground zero.", and Clint sounded serious enough that Tony and Pietro both sobered up, Steve looked a little put out that his little speech hadn't achieved that reaction as he glanced back at them.

"Be on your best behavior, got it.", Tony spoke up and when then put on his best smile when Clint and Steve both looked at him, "Hey, I like the Officer we talked to, and he understood my jokes. What was his name again, Malachi?"  
"Malachin.", Steve and Clint corrected at the same time, before Clint took over again, "Officer Tamir Malachin, he is a very trusted right hand man of Director Orlas. And Jack Rollins' cousin, so take all of your inappropriate jokes and stuff them elsewhere right now, Tony, this is a hopelessly delicate situation, and we need to act with care."

"Wasn't Tamir also the guy who sent you those clues about Sarah?", Pietro wanted to know and grinned when Angie's face appeared as a hologram on the back of Clint's seat, right in front of Pietro, projecting a card game right next to her face and then smiling as Pietro nodded. Tony glared at her and Angie stuck her tongue out at him, but then gave in and projected an overview of his latest projects onto the back of Steve's seat, proving that Jarvis was keeping her in the loop.

"They've been friends for a long time, he was one of the guests at Julie's and Sarah's wedding, so yeah it hit him quite hard when we had to tell him that Jack and Rumlow had his hands in the girl's kidnapping.", Clint spoke calmly, "But his loyalty lies with us. Without a doubt."

\--

The Quinjet touched down on the airfield of the international airport in Tel Aviv and was surrounded by the black shaded armored Mossad jeeps in not time while Clint was still turning off the jet's engines.  
Tony and Steve were the first to walk down the ramp, facing down the crowd of civilly clothed agents, guns and knives well hidden on their bodies for the untrained eye, but not so much for them. Grim and blank faces all around, and only one person stuck out.

A man. Standing not directly next to a closed car door, but a little more towards them, hands clasped in front of him in a relaxed friendly gesture, dark eyes set in a handsome face that only twitched towards a small smile when Clint came to stand next to Steve, Pietro shuffling after him.  
“Agent Barton.”, the dark haired olive skinned man in the black coat greeted him with a friendly smile and a hand quickly outstretched towards Clint.

“Officer Malachin, it is a pleasure to see you again. It's been a long time.”, Clint smiled right back, way more at ease than Tony and Steve looked next to him, but none of them had ever dealt with the Israeli agents, all tension bled out of Clint though as he shook the offered hand.  
“Indeed, it's been too long and it could have been under better circumstances. Captain Rogers,”, Officer Malachin turned to the taller blond with an equal strong grip and easy smile, “It is an honor for us to greet you in our country.”, Tony and Pietro were greeted with the same enthusiasm, and then Malachin turned them to the parked jeeps.

Steve and Tony got into the car parked directly ahead of them with a driver who introduced himself as Officer Aviv, a name Clint didn't recall from any stories Sarah had told about Israel, while Clint and Pietro got to join Malachin in his car. The second the doors were closed, the strict agent turned into the man in his mid thirties that Clint had last seen in the flesh over eight years ago.  
“It could really be under better circumstances.”, Tamir sighed and sent a wry grimace over to Clint in the passenger seat as he started the car and led the row of jeeps off the airfield again, “I don't think you're gonna enjoy this trip very much.”

Clint snorted, “Tamir, believe me, after the year I had it can hardly get any worse.”, Tamir grimaced even more in response to his words and glanced in the rear-view mirror for a moment.  
“It's not all good news. Frankly, I think it's more bad news and some intel for you guys.”, Tamir explained and steered the car onto the main road, dark eyes glancing at Clint now and then, “When I started looking into things, right after DC, just out of personal interest first and then with official backing, I found a lot of information that didn't make sense, a lot of intel that alarmed the Director and me.”

“About Barnes or Sarah?”, Clint wanted to know, not really awaiting anything else but a eye roll and the expected name falling from the agent's lips, basically every intel you nowadays found about Barnes was alarming to say the least, but Tamir had him frozen within one second.  
“Sarah.”, he said and it almost sounded like an apology, as if he personally wanted to unlearn what he had found out and Clint's heart stopped for a split moment and then started up with a hammering speed.

“What did you find out? What is it that you didn't want to tell me over the phone?”, he pressed and prodded and Tamir sighed, setting the lights and driving off the main street to a smaller side one.  
“Well I think you deserve some warning...The Aljenka brothers aren't dead.”, the words fell from round lips softly but slammed against Clint's ears and mind with a vengeance and a red hot anger that coiled like a snake around his heart, his stomach, his throat, his fingers twitching instantly.  
“That's not possible.”, Clint spoke calmly and blank, though he felt anything but, next to him Tamir breathed in deep.

“Michail and Aljoscha are alive. And not only do I have proof, but I also have undeniable proof that Sarah knew. For near up a decade.”, Tamir pitched out the next bomb and Clint's head was turning in frantic circles, trying to make sense of it, trying to work with it, trying to keep a handle on the world around him, behind him Pietro shifted nervously.  
“The house exploded.”, he stuttered out, “They were inside when the house exploded. I put a bullet in Aljoscha's knee. I saw Michail go down in the chaos and the panic of the Interpol raid. It had been impossible for them to get out, I barely got Sarah and myself out of the house before everything went up into flames. 37 people died that night, and Interpol confirmed the Aljenkas deaths.”, Clint knew he was desperately trying to believe in the story he had been told from day one, but Tamir looked over at him at a traffic light, right behind it the tall white building of the Mossad headquarters’s facility was already visible.

“You call them Interpol, Clint.”, Tamir started, turning left when the light went green without looking really and stopping in front of the gate, letting the tinted window scroll down, “We call them Hydra.”, he pointed out and then turned to look at the approaching agent with the machine gun, “Boker tov.”

\--

They got out in a small courtyard and Tamir was left alone with them when the other agents drove the cars into the sub level garage.  
“This way, please.”, Tamir gestured towards the small pathway that would lead them to the main entrance probably, or at least Clint hoped as much. When they turned the corner, he stopped short completely as he caught sight of the small woman in the dark blue coat who stood waiting in front of the main entrance, her slightly gray tinged dark brunet hair clipped back from her soft features, warm brown eyes having only eyes for the still frozen archer.

“Yeah, I should have probably brought that up.”, Tamir mumbled in apology, reaching up to scratch at the back of his neck with one awkward hand, coming to stand next to the woman who barely came up to his shoulders.  
“Clint.”, she spoke up not a blink later, lips settling into a hesitant smile, Clint could barely breathe.  
“Dinah.”, he gasped out in complete surprise and shock while behind him Pietro, Steve and Tony exchanged a confused look, “You're alive.”, Clint continued, face finally shifting into a relieved grin, looking seemingly years younger with one smile as he held out a hand and then pulled the older and smaller woman into a tight embrace, “We thought they had gotten you, killed you.”

“Oh, they would never get me.”, she gave a short laugh, pulling away again but keeping close enough that one of Clint's hands remained on her elbow, “I may be getting old, but I am not slowing down. The moment I saw the news reports from DC, I packed my bag and went underground, took a flight to Paris and then contacted my old friends to get me home.”, the woman called Dinah explained and next to her Tamir snorted.  
“Drove the car from Ankara herself.”, he gritted out drily, “I can still smell Syrian sand in my car.”

“Clint?”, Steve questioned carefully, and Clint snapped back to the situation at hand, Steve patiently waiting for an introduction, Tony buzzing with curiosity as his elbow and Pietro smiling on his other side.  
“Right. Guys, meet former Mossad Officer Dinah Malachin, formerly known as Dinah Rollins, Jack's mother, and the woman Fury is most afraid of.”, he smirked in the end, Dinah swatted at his hand. Steve and Tony looked surprised, Pietro was grinning.

\--

Despite Tamir's nicely put offering, Clint insisted on no downtime before going straight over to business, he was too itching for an explanation, for proof, for something solid. He allowed himself one small moment outside the conference room Tamir and Dinah walked them to, pulling Dinah to the side outside the door, while Tamir talked about the base and the agency, answering Tony's curious questions as Steve and Pietro looked on.

“How are you really?”, Clint asked the older woman once they were alone, looking down at the lobby through the open staircase, Dinah sighed.  
“I feel old.”, she confessed, Clint chanced a look down at her, “I feel old, powerless and like a complete moron. Keep an asking myself what I missed, what I should have seen.”  
“You're not the only one wondering.”, Clint tried to comfort her but Dinah only sighed again, turned and throw a long look over Tamir and Tony laughing, Steve face-palming next to them and Pietro looking bored.

“He's my son, Clint. Not a co-worker, not a team member, not a friend, and I'm not just some housewife. My son, and despite what everyone keeps on telling me, I should have known something was up, that was my job for a decade. I should have known, and what happened to the girls...I'll take that guilt to my grave.”, he swallowed heavily at her words and then closed his eyes when her hand came to rest on his back, “Sarah was like a daughter for me since the day she opened that apartment door for me.”

“She also kept secrets from us.”, Clint ground out between his teeth, still trying to come up with an explanation himself on why his girl has seen the need to keep this from him.  
“Family is complicated, Clint, she had her reasons, I'm sure she did. Just as much as I am convinced that had she known anything about Hydra, we would have all known.”, Dinah told him, “Sarah loved Jack...and she respected Brock if not more again in the last years, things have always been complicated with them, but Sarah had her limits. She wouldn't have turned the other way if she knew about Hydra, you know that even more than I do. So don't start having doubts. Sarah was your girl, always, her true loyalty only ever laid with her girls and you.”

“If she is still alive when we find her, she'll never be who she has been before all of this.”, he spoke out loud what he was so scared about on the inside and Dinah nodded.  
“No, she can't. She was betrayed, but she won't be alone, she'll have help, and we'll find a way to move on.”, Dinah smiled, as painful as it may look like, she had strength and Clint tried to soak some of it up.  
“Of course we will find a way.”, a new voice joined into their conversation and they both turned to the left to watch how the tall woman with the bound back black hair walked down the corridor towards them, carrying two thick files, “Agent Barton.”, she greeted when she was close enough.

Clint chuckled, but reached for her hand, grinning at the tight grip, “Director Orlas.”  
“I think Viktoria is still more than enough, Clint.”, she offered and Clint smirked, “God, it's been so long since I fished you out of that dumpster.”, and his smirk slipped right off his face upon her words.

\--

Tamir presented them the proof he had been speaking about not ten minutes later, proof in form of a stack of pictures that showed Sarah with Michail and Aljoscha Aljenka, some with both of them, in some just with one, and what concerned Clint the most, Rumlow was a background figure in quite a lot of them.  
“We've been tracking both brothers for a while already, it's not important why, but they came upon our radar in a not so good way.”, Tamir explained and Clint let the secret agendas slide, they all had them and there was no reason to pry into business that wasn't central to their projects, “The oldest one is from 2004, Moscow.”, Tamir provided and tapped upon a picture of the worst quality that had Tony cringing repeatedly.

“Kappa mission, get some of our people out from under the FSB. Sarah was edgy for weeks after they got back.”, Clint recalled, his eyes flying over the picture of his then nineteen year old daughter glaring at a pair of hooded men.  
“That was the time when Jack and Brock took her up to Montana.”, Dinah remembered as well, “Jack told me something had gone wrong and Sarah needed a place to breathe for a few days.”

“Well, as far as we know that was the first time she saw them. This was the last.”, Tamir continued and pulled the clearest picture on top of the table, “Once again Moscow, eight weeks before the girls disappear. And well...I think it speaks for itself.”, it did, it truly did, Aljoscha Aljenka was unmistakable for someone who knew him, short brunet hair, cold blue eyes, hands raised over his head on the snapshot from a traffic camera.

And across from him, Sarah had her weapon aimed at his head, Rumlow's arm around her waist as he tried to pull her back apparently. Clint tried to take a deep breath to fight down the anger it boiled up inside of him, fingernails digging into his thighs until Pietro reached over and squeezed his wrist.

“When Tamir found those recent pictures, we used some more persuasion on our Russian colleagues, and it still is astonishing what the name Aljenka can set in motion in the FSB.”, Director Orlas took over then, opening the second folder she had carried into the room and took our a single photograph, sliding it over the table to where Clint had sat down on Steve's left.

Both of their breaths staggered when they caught sight of the two people caught on camera.

It was blurred, taken by night, but Sarah's striking red hair was still easy to make out on the head of the obviously unconscious woman being carried by the black clad masked figure whose metal arm stuck out like a sore thumb.

And Clint hadn't been ready for it.

\--

They exchanged more information still, but Clint's head wasn't in the game anymore, his eyes always twitching back towards the picture of the Soldier carrying away his little girl. They knew by now that Hydra had been after Julie and Tess for some still undiscovered reason, that there had been a kill order issued for Sarah to get her out of the way, but that for an once again yet undiscovered reason she appeared to still be alive.

And Clint's head was running in circles trying to come to terms with what role Rumlow, Rollins or even the Soldier could have played in that. 

Viktoria snapped him out of his thoughts again when their meeting ended with a small stack of papers being pushed into Steve's hands by Tamir as Viktoria went to explain.  
“The weapon is not responsible for the actions, it's the hand that pulls the trigger and the head who sets the target. Sergeant Barnes has a long road of recovery before himself, and he has the Mossad's full support in any legal difficulties that might come along after he makes his reappearance.”, she said and then smiled when Steve gaped at her.

“It's a full official amnesty for any crimes he had been forced to act out against Israeli people and especially against agents of this agency.”, Tamir explained, winking at him when Clint chuckled over Steve's complete slack awed gaping.  
“We're deeply touched and shocked.”, Tony jumped in when Steve could only stare at the document in his hands, “But we are sincerely grateful for this gesture.”

“Yes, that.”, Steve muttered quietly and despite the overall morose situation, everyone laughed at the flushed embarrassment on Steve's face.

\--

"Do you still believe it was the right decision not to tell him?", Dinah asked in Hebrew as she approached Viktoria Orlas on the viewing platform of the airport, together they watched for a moment how Tamir led the Avengers back to their jet. The woman at her side thought over her answer for a moment, but then sighed and still curled her lips into a small smile.

"Clint Barton is a good man, but he is also a dangerous one, and he fights with his heart and his head. If there has ever been a right time to tell him, then it was ten years ago, when I found out, but that window has closed a long time ago. All I want now is my sons being brought to justice and the fate of three wonderful young women cleared up.", she explained and tugged her scarf higher when the wind picked up, Dinah turned her look back towards the jet where Clint Barton and Tamir were the last people standing outside on the airfield.

"You and me, both. And just for the record, I do believe you made the right choice, this is not something they should hear about at this time. We're fighting a war, we still need a lot of strength.", Dinah said and at her side Viktoria nodded, down below Clint Barton shook hands with Tamir and then stepped into the jet, ramp being raised as he went.  
"Let's just hope our strength, and theirs, will be enough.", she spoke and then held down her hair as the jet took off into the clear blue sky over Tel Aviv.

\--

"Please don't say you have bad news, please don't. Just once let it be a 'I missed you and wanted to see you the second you got back'.", Clint looked up where he had been picking up his bags and he spotted Sammy standing with a file clutched to her chest at the end of the lowered ramp, Steve walking towards her, and the way she looked at her boyfriend told Clint that the answer wouldn't please him.

"I'm sorry.", Sammy started as feared, sending a look to Tony and Clint as well, "I am happy to see you back and I did miss you, but we found something that you should see, all of you. Maria and Natasha are waiting for us in the conference room.", Steve groaned in response, dragging both hands over his face.  
"What is it?", Clint asked, walking over to stand next to Steve, Tony approaching them as well, only Pietro staid behind, still getting bags out of the storage unit.

Sammy hesitated, clearly hesitated, take a long look from Steve to Tony and then back to Clint again, knuckles white where she pressed the file to her chest.  
"We found messages from Commander Viktora.", Sammy's voice could have not been any clearer, forcefully calm and slow to bring every single word across to them, Clint was swaying on the spot in the next second, and Radcliff's brown eyes turned apologetic as she bit her lips. 

Steve snapped out a hand to keep Clint upright and Pietro was standing on his other side within the blink of an eye, concerned blue eyes flickering over Clint's ashen face.  
"Old messages?", Tony wanted clarified, the only one still able to speak really, Sammy nodded, "Fuck.", he spoke out what everyone was thinking.

"Pietro, can you bring our bags up and then meet us in the conference room?", Steve choked out after a long moment of silence, the speedster threw a quick look over to him before staring back at Clint's stunned wide eyes, "We got him.", Steve assured him and only then did Pietro swoosh away.

\--

The messages were indeed all spoken by Commander Viktora, all eleven of them, and their content and the way they had been spoken, it showed the story of a nightmare. And despite what all of them might have thought, it got worse, and none of them had been prepared.

\--

„Red Scope calling for back up. Red Scope calling in for back up.“

\--

„This is Commander Viktora, we have been compromised. Agents Seaway and St.Oak have been taken hostage, we need an extraction team. Sent back up.“

\--

„This is Strike Team Alpha calling for back up. Someone fucking answer me, goddammit.“

\--

“Brock, this is not the time for tests. I need your help! He took my girls, he took my girls!”

\--

„I need help, Clint. Julie and Tess have been taken, I've been hit, I can't get them out alone. I can't reach anyone at Shield, why can't I reach anyone anymore, Clint? What is going on?“

\--

“Brock, Jack...I need you. He shot me with something, I'm scared. Please help me.”

\--

„Clint, Clint, Shield is Hydra. We've been played, trust no one! I repeat Shield is Hydra. Get yourself out of there as soon as possible. Sitwell and Pierce, Brock...Jack....they are all playing us. Get out of there!“

\--

„This is Commander Viktora calling from Moscow. I can't run any longer, I still haven't found a trace of my teammates, I think the gunshot wound got infected. Something is messing with my head. If anyone can hear this, please send back up.“

\--

„Clint, Natasha, I hope you get out of this mess alive. I can't run anymore, he is closing in with every breath I take, he will get me soon enough.“

\--

„This is Commander Viktora of Strike Team Alpha speaking. My teammates have been killed by the Winter Soldier, there is no Team Alpha anymore. I've been cornered and surrounded in the outskirts of Moscow. Whoever hears this, avenge us.“

\--

„Dad, he is here.“, crash sounded, „The Soldier is here for me.“, a shot rang out, loud scream, „Goodbye, Dad“

Steve closed his eyes for a moment when the message cut off, and only opened them again after a minute of absolute silence had reigned between them.  
“That all?”, he directed towards Maria who nodded solemnly back at him, her eyes set though on the quiet and still bodies of the two assassin's across the table from her.  
“It's the very last message we have now from Agent Viktora, no sign of life at all since then.”, Maria explained and it was silent for a very long minute, everybody trying to process in their own ways what they had just heard.

A scared and hopeless woman giving up.

“Why do I only hear these now?”, Clint's angry snap broke through the quiet, and blue eyes flashed around the room until they settled on the dark haired woman.  
“Clint...”, Steve tried to soothe him, but the archer was having none of it.  
“No.”, Clint cut him off, angry blue eyes piercing right through Maria, “I want to know. Right now. I was a Level 7 Agent, nothing these girls did was classified for me. And three of these messages were clearly meant for us, for me. Spoken on channels that were assigned to me.”

“Clint...Pierce, Sitwell, Rumlow, we thought they were one of us. They had access to all sensitive material. Agent Radcliff found these messages deleted off the communication channels, swiped into a personal folder on Rumlow's server, hidden deep behind private codes.”, Maria explained, seemingly calm despite Clint's harsh glare and the dangerous silence Natasha showed.

“I found them a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't say anything because it seemed impossible to break in.”, Sammy quickly added when Steve and Clint both opened their mouths, “I gave it to Zach and Quentin, told them to try everything to get to what was hiding behind those firewalls and password mazes. Told them that they should alarm me the second they made any substantial progress, but nothing happened until the evening after you had left for Israel. Zach gave in and asked Jarvis for help.”, across the table Tony snapped back to full attention.

“To Agent Calder's defense, Sir, you had allowed him to use the lab while you were gone, granted that he didn't touch anything too expensive looking.”, Jarvis piped up then, Clint dropped his face into his hands and massaged his temples, on either side of him Pietro and Natasha exchanged a look, and she hooked her leg around his under the table in the next moment as Jarvis continued, “I sensed his growing frustration and offered my assistance, and it took even me some hours to get past the security features.”

“Thanks, buddy, that was some great work.”, Tony said and dragged a hand over his face, “We need to focus on the good parts, guys.”, the dark haired man emphasized as Steve reached for Sammy's hand and let her stroke over his knuckles, “We know that all three girls are alive. Rumlow wouldn't play his games if he had no leverage to ground them on.”, Tony pointed out and Steve and Natasha both nodded.

“We need to find Barnes.”, Clint spoke up as well again, raising his head and finding Steve's eyes easily, “We need to talk to him, he says he remembers many things now, maybe he remembers Odessa, Moscow, any of it.”, if he sounded as unsteady as he felt, no one said a word.  
“I think Clint is right.”, Tony agreed while Steve was still silent, “Barnes holds the key, and this is the time where we should stop working separately. It's no longer bring Barnes home versus find the girls, now it's find Bucky and find out what happened to the girls...One thing that puzzles me right now, J.”, Tony addressed his AI again, “Rumlow did not strike me as the kind of guy who is able to hide his own server behind walls of encryption. Can you trace the coding back to someone at Shield?”

Jarvis answered without missing a beat, “I traced the coding sources back to similar work that Commander Viktora had done on her own laptop.”, he told them and Clint groaned.  
“Can't say I'm surprised.”, Natasha said and stroked a hand over Clint's back as the blond dropped his head into his hands on the table, “Rollins was good in solving puzzles, not creating them, and Rumlow has always been the brute force kind of type, figures Sarah helped them hide their intel. There were a lot of people within Shield that Rumlow and Sarah didn't trust, Sitwell was right on top of that list.”

“If...”, Sammy started quietly, “If it's any consolation to you, Agent Barton, the scream in her last message...it's not from Commander Viktora...”, and there Sammy hesitated and chanced a look over to Steve, the tension between was still there sometimes, “Barnes is the one screaming.”  
Pushing his chair back and jumping to his feet, Clint flashed one furious look over Maria and Sammy, and then to Steve, slowly advancing on the Avenger's leader until he could crowd deep into Steve's personal space, “You will find them.”

“I will, Clint, I promise.”, Steve had barely finished speaking before Clint turned around again and stormed towards the door, stopping with the handle in his hand to throw a look over his shoulder towards Sammy who was nervously biting her lips.  
“For your information, no, it does not comfort me in any way to know that whatever happened to my daughter had the Winter Soldier scream in agony.”, and then he ripped open the door and vanished.

\--

Natasha found him at the most wanted wall at the main entrance of the base, stoically leaning against the opposite wall, eyes narrowed onto the pictures of faces that were lined up in over five rows, former coworkers, fellow agents, former fellow Strike members. People they had trusted. People they had liked.

It wasn't where she had first looked, not the first thought she had had when she had went out to search for him, but the corridor with the wall of valor had been empty, and she had passed by the three pictures of her old friends with a twist shooting through her own heart.

“Didn't expect to find you here.”, she opened the conversation with honesty, knowing that her partner would need it most of all now, too much betrayal again.  
“Their names on the wall is the only place I have for grief right now, I wouldn't befoul it with my anger.”, Clint gritted out between his teeth, his eyes never leaving the charmingly smiling face of Brock Rumlow, even when she walked right up to him and reached up a hand to cup his cheek.

“I will find him. I will find him and then I will kill him. Make him suffer for every second of pain he put them through.”, she wanted to speak up, to interrupt him and to tell him that everything she knew about the Winter Soldier...about Yasha...it all told her that he gave quick deaths. No matter what Hydra was, no matter how much fucked up methods they had cooked up over the years, the Winter Soldier was not a torturer, he was a killer.

She wanted to tell him that if team alpha had been killed, they had not needed to suffer, because Yasha would have made it quick and clean. But now there was the real possibility that all of them had been captured months ago, and she couldn't...wouldn't think of what could have happened to them then, or what could still be happening to them. Hydra had too many people like Strucker. Like Sitwell. 

Like Rumlow. 

People who liked nothing more than to take the lives from their victims breath by breath. Who liked to play their sick and twisted perverted games to get off in the night. But the main reason for her not stopping him from laying out his revenge plans, it was much simpler. Natasha Romanoff, she knew how to think practical and reasonable, she wanted to continue to believe her friends were dead because the alternative was much more gruesome. The Black Widow, she knew how to make plans to support Clint's desperate need for vengeance and torture. 

But it was Natalia Romanova who was the loudest at the moment, who was the loudest ever since the moment she had heard the messages from a scared and frightened friend. And Natalia was in pain, Natalia wanted vengeance, wanted to see Rumlow scream and die just as much as Clint. Natalia wanted to pull every last teeth from his mouth, wanted to rip out his tongue when he was done giving them the information they needed, wanted to tear off his skin, gauge out his eyes, and then choke him until the light finally went out.

So instead of stopping him on his dark thoughts, Natasha cupped his face with both hands and made him look into her eyes, “I'll help you.”, she promised. And she meant every single word. Clint simply nodded and then pulled her closer, wrapping both arms around him and crashing his lips to her, completely oblivious to the open hallway. She could feel the despair in him, the fear and panic racing through his veins, the frantic longing for something to ground himself in, and she let him find it in herself.

Kissing back just as hard, she pushed and pulled until it was her with her back to the wall, Clint pressing her up against it, reaching out to grab one of her legs and hooking it around his waist. He didn't even notice the steps or the gasp that draw Natasha to look out over his shoulder, catching sight of Tony gaping at them.  
“Holy Shit.”, he blurted out and Natasha felt Clint groaning against her neck, but not stopping, and seriously, it was about time the cat got out of the bag anyway, “Holy...”

Steve saved them in the next moment when he came around the corner as well, saw them, saw Tony gaping and then rolled his eyes, winking at Natasha before grabbing Tony's arm and dragging him away.  
“Come on, Tony.”, he said and pulled the now wildly gesturing genius towards the elevators.  
“But, Steve...Steve...Steve, they...”, spluttering and stuttering, Tony vanished behind the corner and Natasha could hear the deep sigh Steve let out as he followed.

Clint demanded her attention back, digging his fingers into the small of her back and she let herself be convinced to five more minutes of spontaneous make out sessions in the hallway, before she gently forced him to stumble over to the elevator, hands never leaving her body. 

“I can't promise you that we'll find them alive.”, Natasha spoke up when he finally let her, stopping him outside her room, “But I can promise you that we will bring them home. We'll give them peace, whether they are alive or dead. We'll bring the girls home.”, she waited for a moment, “But don't do this alone, Clint. You gave Steve the rights to dig into this case, so let him continue his work and continue yours. Yasha might still know more than we give him credit for.”

He nodded but then grinned, bringing her flush against him, only letting go of one of her hands so she could blindly open the door with the key card.  
“I know.”, he said, “But believe it or not, right now, Yasha is the last thing on my mind.”, Natasha snorted and then squeaked when he picked her up until she had to wrap her legs around his waist to keep her balance, just as he kicked open the doors, “Right now I need to find out if Stark made the walls as sound proved as he promised.”

\--

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are coming closer to the end, and in the next real chapter (excluding the Interlude I wrote for cutesy effects) Clint might actually be able to forget his worry over his little angels for some moments as he finally comes face to face with a ghost again.
> 
> Yeah, you heard right, it's Bucky time.


	19. Interlude: The Boy with the Bow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's getting cutesy.  
> Originally I had wanted this Interlude to be about Natasha's and Clint's first meeting, but that got too long to just be an Interlude and will probably become its own Oneshot in this Strike Team Alpha series whenever I get satisfied with it.  
> So you get another first meeting for Clint, and also another small look into Budapest.
> 
> I hope you'll like it

The Soldier was quiet, soundless steps walking up the stairs, there were no creaks, no thumbs of his steps, he was the incarnation of silence and death. The knife in his hand clean again, no blood able to drip down into the carpet and leave traces behind, there was never a track, he knew how to vanish better even than he knew how to blend in. The grip of his metal hand on the gun was loose, no tension yet, the guards had died without much effort, the son had slept through his throat being cut.

He didn't leave a mess behind, he was neat, because a mess meant a danger of leaving something behind, proof, traces, rumors. 

The master bedroom was at the end of the long corridor in the second story of the house in Bucharest, and he slid towards it in the complete darkness, twisting the knife up to jam back into the holster at his back, he wouldn't need it for them. The house was on the outskirts, not exactly the best and safest area he had been told, so he didn't exactly have to be a ghost about this. 'Give them something to be scared of', the Commander had said, so the gun it would be.

Fingering the silencer out of his pockets, he rolled it on as he stepped towards the half open door. The window was open, a soft breeze blowing the curtains in as he stepped aside and smoothly over to the bed.

One shot later the woman who was not the wife was dead.

The man's eyes snapped open and he took in a gasping breath, but refrained from making another sound when the barrel of the gun got pressed to his heart, feeling the pulse stutter. Thud. Thud. Thud. 

The Soldier looked down at those scared eyes and felt nothing, “Hail Hydra.”, his lips formed and then he pulled the trigger once more, the man breathed out his life not a second later.

He busied himself with the explosives and charges in the next minutes as he already did with the rest of the house, he was told to make sure everything was burning when he left, had been given strict orders to set a sign for others. He was striking the match and holding it to the charge of the chain reaction when the small figure jumped through the window.

Brown boots barely made a sound as the kid touched down on the ground in a low crouch, attentive eyes flickering towards the bed and not seeing him standing in the shadow of the closet, but he saw him. Blond hair wild from wind, dark purple jacket zipped up high, fingers covered by black gloves, holding a knife each, silver glinting in the moonlight.

But what drew his attention most was the bow slung over one shoulder, the quiver full of actual arrows strung to the kid's back, behind the goggles the Soldier almost felt himself raise an eyebrow, the no longer unfamiliar feeling of confusion rising up in his chest.

A bow?

When blue eyes found him finally, they both froze and blinked at each other, until at least the kid's mouth dropped open in a complete shocked gape.  
“Holy shit.”, he whispered, “You're real.”, the Soldier had no idea what the boy was talking about, had only eyes and ears suddenly for the sizzling sound behind his back.

He acted on instinct and pure survival drive alone, charging forward and towards the boy, he slung the metal arm around the kid's shoulders and pulled him up, pushing him out of the window and down the fire escape. The boy squeaked and grabbed his leg in a desperate attempt to find something to hold on, bringing the Soldier down with him.

Together they tumbled down the stairs and down onto the hard ground of the back alley, the Soldier down upon the boy who let out a pain filled groan.

He was on his feet again within the next blink of an eye, staring down at the dazed face of the boy, bleeding out of a cut on his temple, the knives splattered around him, lying on his bow and the quiver as blue eyes slowly blink at him.

Above them the first floor explodes in a giant fireball, while they stare at each other and though the voices in his head were screaming at him to make a clean cut, to not leave any witnesses behind, the Soldier can't bring himself to kill the boy.

He was scrawny, looked half starved, eternally hungry, barely skin and bones, some muscles maybe around his shoulders and the arms, but the rest of him was thin as a stick. Clothes hanging on his limbs, his blond hair dull even in the light of the fire.

He couldn't pull the trigger, couldn't draw a knife, he was frozen.

Something was itching at the back of his mind, something was pulling in the black emptiness of what his memories were allowed to be. Searching without abandon through the years with his little cat to find something that would explain this.

He came up blank.

He fled.

Left the boy behind, lying on the street as the second explosion rang out and the house was burning.

\--

He reached Moscow in an almost fevered panic, and he almost welcomed the cold handling of the guards when he stepped back into the Academy, let them bring him down into the basement while his head was on fire.

Voices yelling, screaming, crying. Flashes of the boy looking at him as if caught in a dream mixed together with flashes of something else. Something he couldn't grasp. 

They wiped him, wiped the mission clear out of his head.

And with it the panicked search for answers.

With it the mental images of the kid with the pale blue eyes.

Afterwards he was allowed back to his little cat and Natashenka greeted him with a bright smile and a throwing knife, the one he had gifted to her years ago when his leaving for mission had still upset her and made her sad.

“I've missed you, Yasha.”, she said and hugged him nevertheless and he let her, embraced her back even, no longer thinking of him.

The boy with the bow.

\--

Clint was not obsessing.

He was in complete and utter control of his actions and decisions and especially his emotions and Jacques could go and fuck himself three times over in all available holes.

Clint Barton was not obsessing.

Clint Barton did not have a crush.

Especially not on the Winter Soldier.

He was merely looking to learn some things.

So what if he had frantically searched every kind of available information archive for something on the most famous ghost of their time. You're not an assassin if you're not a little bit interested in the competition.

Especially if said competition saved you from being killed by the explosion he had set himself, not exactly uncommon in his circles but also still surprising and shocking because it had been him. 

The Winter Soldier.

Who so far had not exactly been known to save fellow killers, and Jacques had probably had a good reason to shake Clint all ways to Monday in his shock over his student's grinning exclamation, hair still covered in ash.

So when Clint found himself on another job in Madrid a few months after his first encounter with the Soldier, he jumped like a dog for the bone when he heard rumors about him having been spotted in the downtown area. It wasn't until the end of the day that he found him though...or better say he was found snooping around like a stray dog as the sun set over the Spanish capital.

The Soldier jumped down from a bridge right in front of him, scaring him all ways into the next year, but a quick metal hand clamped down over his mouth before a sound of his terrified yell could have left his lips. He wasn't wearing the goggles this time, just the mask, but it was even more thrilling and frightening to see those emotionless blue eyes so up close for once.

Clint's heart was racing, but not just in fear, so yeah, maybe he was a little bit obsessed, maybe he had had more than just one dream fantasizing about the Soldier. About those cold eyes. About that lethal metal hand. And maybe, just maybe, his stupid teenage hormones were going a little through the roof with him.

No one had to know.

“Stop following me.”, the Soldier snarled out behind the mask, throwing a quick look around before manhandling Clint into a dark alleyway just off the main street, pressing him up close against a brick wall. Clint's dirty fantasies were going wild, “Stop looking, stop digging, and most importantly stop following me.”

“But why?”, Clint immediately shot back once the Soldier had dropped his hand, “You're like the best of the best, there is stuff you could teach me...”, an eyebrow got raised and for a second the Soldier looked exactly like Jacques when Clint had made a completely suicidal mission plan again, strangely fondly exasperated.

It looked annoying on Jacques, it looked downright fucking awesome on a cold-heartened assassin like the Soldier.

“I do not want to kill you.”, the Soldier told him in a voice that was urgent as much as it was colored with the familiar tones of 'I can't fucking believe what I am dealing with', Clint could detect that even half dead, familiar with it since childhood.  
“I wouldn't tell anyone, I can keep a secret.”, Clint promised, stumbling after the Soldier as he turned back to the empty deserted street.

“If you keep following me, if you only keep looking for clues, they will find out, and then I will have to come for you.”, he explained as Clint tried to keep up with his long strides, god that man had legs to die for. Completely distracted for a moment, Clint ran full front into the Soldier as the other man had stopped on the sidewalk and turned around again, strong hands steadied him and made him look up to stare into blue eyes again, “And I do not want to kill you.”, the Soldier repeated and Clint's mind finally offered him the light.

“Oh.”, the Soldier liked him, dude, the guy liked him, his inner voice started yelling at him while his lips pulled themselves into a doopey grin, how awesome was that, “Okay.”, he agreed, swimming on more endorphins than the last time he had been doped up with morphine, “But if you ever need help, my name is Hawkeye and my call sign is an arrow.”, he called out as the Soldier had already turned to walk away again.

“I don't need help. Get a life, kid.”, came the shout back and Clint growled himself through a pout as he watched the Soldier disappear into the sunset like the ghost he was.

He also didn't really get the whole staying away part until the Soldier flung himself in front of a bullet for him a year later in Beijing. He stopped chasing him then, fleeing from the scene as two heavily armored vehicles approached the street corner, leaving the Soldier bleeding on the ground from the wound in his chest, repeating his begging plea for him to run.

\--

“You have to go.”, the Soldier gasped out again, blood still gushing from the wound in his side, breaths fast and unsteady and blue eyes stared down at him in complete panic while his shaking hands pressed down on the older man's chest and rips, coated in his blood.  
“I can't leave you...”, Clint croaked out but a metal hand pushed against his shoulder again, still strong despite the really bad state of his wounds.

The incident had been an hour ago and Clint was aware that other people would have died already, would have been dead within seconds and yes, parts of his brain wondered just how it could be, but the bigger part of him, it was freaking out. He had seen it happening, had seen the grenade launcher, the sentry guns, and he had only been quick enough to take down the man with the grenade launcher, he hadn't been able to stop the bullets.

“You can and you have to leave me here.”, the Soldier repeated again, his English sounding weird, laced with a heavy and hard accent, “You have to leave before they get here. My back-up will kill you, and they will make it painful.”, behind them the sound of the trucks got louder and Clint tensed even more, “You have to go, Hawkeye. Go and don't ever come looking for me again, forget about me. It's the only thing that will keep you safe.”

It hurt, but Clint left, one last look thrown over his shoulder and then he started running, leaving the Soldier behind in the golden sunset.

\--

Clint went and joined the army.

But he never forgot.

\--

Yasha breathed out deep, pressing himself closer into the shadow of the rooftop garden shed, his eyes set on the fight on the rooftop across from his. Knives were flying, guns were being fired. He had already had his rifle set, fully settled and aimed for the man who had followed Natalia since she had come to Budapest, where he himself had finally managed to catch up with her.

On the witch-hunt that was the most difficult mission he had ever had, but he needed to follow orders, he needed to bring Natalia in or die trying, there was no other choice, no matter how much he wanted it to appear. 

He had followed the man in the black combat gear to the outskirts of Pest and had then slipped onto a high point to take his shot while Natalia had engaged the unknown man in a fight that could quickly turn deathly.

And Yasha's orders were to bring Natalia in alive.

He had the shot already lined up, knowing that the man dropping dead right in front of her would give him away to Natalia, but he had reason to believe that she would come to him instead of running once more.

But then he had seen the man's face. And a stranger he was not. No longer a boy, but a man now, but it still triggered the same flashes of memories in Yasha's mind. An exploding building in Bucharest, a bleeding kid on the ground. A sunset in Madrid, a stubbornly pouting boy left behind at the streetlight.

And he knew Natalia was saved.

Saved by him.

The boy with the bow.

\--

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Questions? Wishes? Ideas?  
> Hit me in the comments or on tumblr: strike-team-alpha.com
> 
> And see you in the next chapter when our ghostly Soldier makes a grand return and has Clint drooling on a rooftop with one smile


	20. A Ghost Called Yasha and a Fanboy Called Clint

Pietro wasn't downright avoiding Steve as much as humanly possible, but it wasn't as if he was actively trying to search for Steve's presence either. It was complicated, difficult and awkward between them, and even though Pietro couldn't really understand it, he knew the reason was Sammy. Or better, the fact that Sammy was Steve's girlfriend and his friend.

Steve was jealous of the time she spent with him. Sammy was jealous of the time Steve spent with Tony. Tony was trying his best to help Steve with his relationship with Sammy. And Pietro was mostly standing in the middle completely confused and overwhelmed. He didn't really understand why Steve saw red when he was goofing around with the smart brunet, he saw her as a friend, he knew that she loved Steve and just liked to annoy Pietro from time to time. It was nice hanging out with her but it was nothing more.

But today, Clint had forced him to take Steve out for a morning run, a really really long one, to get him out of Sam's hair for some hours, because even their sane Avenger had a breaking point when it came to overbearing Supersoldiers. They had reached Brooklyn by foot before Pietro brought up the courage to say a word to break the thick silence between them that only he seemed to notice, because Steve seemed quite content in staying quiet.

“Do you hate me?”, Pietro blurted out as they stopped at a traffic light, and Steve whipped his head around so fast it just had to hurt.  
“What? Why would I hate you?”, the blond asked in complete surprise while Pietro bit his lips to keep from blabbing around nervously, “Jesus, Pietro, of course I don't hate you. Just because I don't like it how much time Sammy spends with you, doesn't mean I hate you. You're a great kid, I'm really glad you're on the team.”, the look of guilt in those blue eyes could really push you to your knees, Dad had been right in that one, Pietro grumbled on the inside as he watched Steve awkwardly scratch the back of his head, “Listen, I'm sorry, I didn't exactly treat you in a way that would show you any different. What do you say, breakfast in the city and we talk?”, Pietro grinned and nodded, relief flooding his body for having misread Steve's actions.

In the next second they both ducked as the sound of what clearly was an explosion sounded somewhere to the east, Steve whirled around and Pietro saw him checking out the buildings in their area, many New Yorkers had stopped as well, frightful faces looking up into the sky.  
“What was that?”, he asked, trying to get a read on Steve's expression, a mix between a frown and doom promising defeat.

“Nothing good.”, Steve pointed out and then nodded towards a street, “Let's see what's going on. Maybe we can help.”, he said and Pietro followed even though everything in him was screaming to protest, proposing to find a phone and call the team, but would checking it out really hurt? No need to fall into a panic right away if it was just an accident or some unfortunate disaster.

Not everything had to be in the run for villain of the month.

\--

Of course it was in the run.

No sooner had they turned the next corner that people started screaming at the other end of the street, running in all directions as what looked like dog sized bots came streaming out of a burning building complex. And then took off into the sky.

Steve and him stared for a moment and Pietro cursed his decision to leave his phone back at base, desperately wishing to have at least a knife on him. And judging by the way Steve's hand twitched towards his back, he was wishing for his shield as well.  
“So...”, Pietro said awkwardly as they dumbly watched the bots clatter against windows and house-edges, “Want me to find the next phone booth?”

“Nah.”, Steve waved it away, looking oddly decided suddenly, “This should be easy.”, and they were cursed, Pietro thought, frowning at Steve's easy smile, “There should be something that controls them in those buildings, destroy that, take them down.”, Steve declared and was already moving with confident strides towards the fenced off research facility.

“But...Steve...”, Pietro complained but still went to keep up with the tall blond, but whatever he had wanted to add got stopped short when they brushed past two quarreling bots in what looked like an entrance yard, only to come face to face with three armed Hydra soldiers, “Well you had to jinx it.”, Pietro grumbled and then grabbed Steve's shoulder and dashed them out of the line of fire.

\--

Back on base Clint was doing his best to fight down the worried Dad-instincts after chasing Pietro and Steve off, it was never easy when one of their own was fighting against demons and enemies that they couldn't fight against. PTSD was the most dangerous villain most of the time, something that couldn't be won with group effort, much luck and good training. 

Which didn't mean of course that everyone had to fend for themselves when shadows dominated the day and nightmares ruled the night, they were more than a team, they were a family and no one got left behind. So he made his way upstairs and knocked on Sam's door, it had been Rhodey who had heard the screams last night, who had reached Sam mid panic attack and it had taken Steve and him almost an hour to talk Sam out of it.

The rest of the night no one had really gotten a lot of sleep and Sam most of all had shivered and completely refused to go back to his room, so Steve and Clint had staid with him in the living room after complimenting everyone else out of the room. Rhodey and Tony had been the first to go, understanding blooming in their eyes as they stumbled off towards Tony's workshop. Bruce followed them a little later after making some tea for them that none drank then, and Natasha shuffled Wanda, Pietro and Vision off, knowing that sometimes a group was just too much, no matter how good their intentions were.

They watched mindless movies, letting them mostly run in the background while Steve gently coaxed Sam to talk and Clint mostly tried not to fall asleep again. Now though Sam was back in his own quarters, wearing an oversized hoodie of Steve's and opening the door with dark shadows under his eyes, but at least he didn't look as haunted anymore.

“Am I still under observation?”, he grouched but let Clint enter and closed the door again, slouching over to the couch and crawling into the blanket nest that included at least two of Steve's favorite dark blue blankets, which brought a little smile to Clint's face because he had seen exactly those two blankets wrapped around Tony last week when he had sniffled with a light cold.

“It's more an offer. If you want me to leave you alone, I will go. I didn't chase Steve away with Pietro just so I could take my own turn at suffocating you.”, Clint soothed potential concerns and sat down on the armchair that Sam had dragged in months ago from his old apartment in DC, it was incredibly comfortable.  
“Stay.”, Sam immediately said and picked up the tablet from he table again, fingers flying over it, Clint knew Sam had been trusted with being responsible for the Avenger's Twitter account after Maria had ripped it right out of Natasha's hands again who had been guilty of one too many organized riots.

“How are you doing though? I saw Rhodey leave when I came up.”, Clint didn't realize that he had been using his Dad voice until it was too late, but instead of complaining and taunting him, Sam rolled with it for once. Setting the tablet aside, he cracked his neck.  
“I'm gonna be okay, honestly. It helped that Rhodey was there so quickly, and that Steve was able to catch Maria on the phone. It...her voice made it easy to snap back to here.”, Sam explained, trying to bite back his smile at first but then letting it light up his face a little.

It was still young and fresh between them, and Clint remembered how powerful it felt, to fall in love, to be in love, how healing love could be.   
“She is a force to be reckoned with.”, Clint agreed and Sam chuckled, happy to get a chance to talk about something else. At first, Clint had been skeptical when Maria and Sam had started going out, always so strict and bossy Maria and goofy laid back Sam, but it had worked out. 

They were good for each other and with each other, and Sam liked to grin like the sun was coming up when Maria entered the room, and she stopped scowling at everyone and everything when he was around. It was almost cute.  
“You got breakfast yet? Because I've been told my eggs are pretty great.”, Clint offered and Sam rolled his eyes, nodded though after a moment.

But Clint wasn't even allowed to reach the fridge before the assemble alarm rang out and he whirled around to look at Sam again who groaned and thumped his head against the wall again.  
“Look, man, if you want to sit this one out, I'm sure...”, Clint started but Sam already stood up and waved his concerns away.  
“Honestly, flying and fighting sounds like a very good idea right now. Get my head clear.”, Sam said and already grabbed his shoes, Clint watched him for a moment.

“I...Okay, but don't forget that you can stand down whenever you want. No one is going to blame you.”, he offered and Sam nodded, small smile curling up his lips.  
“I know, Clint, thank you.”, he agreed and the silence and calm was completely broken when Tony barked their names outside the door, the alarm still blaring in the background.

\--

“What's the situation?”, Clint demanded from Jarvis as he swung himself in the pilot's seat, Tony and Rhodey taking off left and right of the jet.  
“An AIM lab in Brooklyn suffered a malfunction in their security measures.”, Jarvis reported and Tony cursed up a storm in the suit, “Bots are swarming out into city and wrecking chaos and destruction, and it appears from eye witness reports that the security guards blocking off the buildings from the police are Hydra soldiers, heavily armed and apparently inclined to shoot. Captain Rogers and Agent Maximoff are already on sight.”, Jarvis finished his report and then a moment of silence reigned.

“What?”, at least until Clint found his voice again and the jet shot into the sky and towards New York City.

\--

Clint landed the jet on the roof of the closest building he deemed suitable to hold the jet for a while and then send Sam, Tony, Vision and Rhodey out to keep the bots in a perimeter while he still suiting up.  
“Make yourself a picture of them, Iron Man.”, he spoke into the comm as he strapped bow and quiver to his back and jogged out of the jet and towards the firestairs, Natasha and Wanda following directly behind, “I want to know who is controlling them. War Machine, find Cap and Quicksilver, direct us to them.”, he bellowed orders as he rushed down the stairs.

When he touched down on the ground below on the street, Pietro was already standing in front of him, grimacing, shirt ripped, some tips of his hair singed.  
“You're grounded.”, he growled into the boy's face, reaching out to make sure he was as uninjured as he appeared, “Widow, bring the shield to Cap.”, Natasha rushed off, “Witch, communicate with Vision and let him bring you to the lab. I want to know who and why. Someone has to know something.”, Wanda nodded and jogged off towards where Vision was already diving down, “And you get into that damn uniform!”, Pietro grinned and blurred away.

A couple of seconds later as Clint was making his way over to the group of police men who had blocked off the main street leading up to the laboratory buildings and were trying to calm the civilians down, Pietro reappeared at his side.  
“Good Morning, gentlemen.”, Clint greeted with a smile for freaked out police men, falling into a quick speech how they had the situation already under control, how the police could help without getting directly involved, the same old blah blah blah.

By the time Sam set him down on a rooftop again to delegate from higher up, they were already set in taken down whatever catastrophe AIM had cooked up this time, Tony complaining constantly in the background, and the only thing making Clint's stomach churn was the presence of Hydra soldiers as security guards.  
“So, if we...”, Cap's voice appeared on the comm as Clint took out a bunch of bots that Sam was trying to shake off, and he snorted.

“Yeah, Cap, if you even think you can call the shots today, there is a place on the jet where you can sit and think about your choices. People don't run into battles without protection and back-up and then get to lead, so stand down soldier and do what I say.”, he ordered and Steve remained completely silent for a moment before quietly agreeing.

And then Tony was yelling about a hidden sniper.

\--

Clint swung himself over the edge of the roof, landing soundlessly on his feet in a low crouch, arrow still fixed in the bow, and freezing in the very next second when he heard the safety of a rifle being loosened. Biting back a curse, he slowly and carefully raised his head up again, blue eyes letting their gaze slowly wander over the rooftop until they landed on black combat boots, and higher then, over the black pants until they settled on the silver gleaming metal hand wrapped around the trigger of the rifle that was pointed right at his head.

And for a good minute, he didn't look anywhere else.

“Never thought I would say this, but eyes up here.”, a deep voice broke him out of his day-dream and his eyes snapped up to the mildly annoyed face of James Barnes, “Good Morning.”  
“Hawkeye, do you have any idea on where the sniper could be now?.”, Cap's voice in his ear destroyed whatever beautiful thing Clint could have come up with in response to that.  
“Well, I am looking right at him, and he is looking right at me, can’t get any clearer.”, he answered and across from him a perfectly shaped eyebrow got raised, but the rifle kept being aimed at him just as much as Clint kept the arrow trained on the Soldier.

“So take him out!”, came the clear order from Steve, accompanied by the sound of breaking bones and the metallic thump of the shield crashing against one of the bots, Clint snorted.  
“Yeah, you don’t want that, Cap.”, he pointed out as drily as he could, grinning at the man behind the rifle scope who still had his eyebrow raised at him.  
“I don’t…Oh. Is he okay?”, it was nothing but predictable how Steve switched from Cap into a mother hen, in the background Tony complained about chatter.  
“Yeah. Listen, Cap, I’m gonna check out for a few minutes. I still have eyes on you, but I think I might need to have a short moment of privacy here. Hawkeye out.”, Clint declared and Steve huffed but staid silent.

„Be careful.“, came Natasha's quick reply, tainted by the sound of her widow's bites being jammed into a man's neck, before Clint reached up a hand and pressed the button to disable his comm, “I can't take them out, you gotta have to trust me on this one. No one can hear us.”, he kept his fingers on the bow, but knocked the drawn arrow back into the quiver, one eye steadily looking over the team, and he noticed that Barnes did the same. 

Kept the hold on his rifle, but slid the knife back into the holster on his hip and the ongoing 17 year old cocky asshole inside Clint started leering like a complete idiot. He felt young again, laying so dumbly confused on the ground of a darkened alley with burning debrief raining down on him, and the Winter Soldier standing right next to him, looking down at him with those dead eyes behind the tinted goggles.

The goggles were gone, as was the mask, but the rest, almost like Clint remembered it from 20 years ago, except the eyes. There is nothing left of the dead haunted look anymore, Barnes looked determined, like a man with a plan. Which honest to god is the best thing you can come up with, Clint? God, you need to be ashamed of yourself, man.  
“You have a telepath among your team.”, Barnes spoke up and his voice lilted with the faint traces of a Russian accent, Clint didn't wonder about it too long, simply forced himself to deal with the situation right now and letting every information be filed away to analyze later.

“She can't get into my head, and she won't try with yours.”, he answered, shifting a little, his muscles still tense despite how much he tried to convince himself that this must have been the most peaceful standoff someone had ever had with the Winter Soldier. And it got to be him again, score for Hawkeye.

Barnes was the first to lose the rigid stance, shoulders rolling before relaxing, his eyes flickering down when the distant sound of the shield shattering metal reached their ears. Clint breathed out and lost the fighting stance. Bucky cocked his head when he pushed a hand through his hair.  
“You're not as scrawny anymore, Hawkeye.”, and wasn't that the most confusing thing he could have said, Clint turned his body to fully face the assassin and raised an eyebrow.

“Thanks?”, he said in clear bewilderment, noting somewhere in the back of his mind that Steve had just too many weird friends, the Soldier almost smirked.  
“Grew up, but still handling that goddamn bow.”, the world's most deadliest assassin continued and Clint gaped, fully open mouthed gaped, and was only pulled out of his inner teenage self shrieking way too loud when he caught sight of a Hydra agent daring to sneak up on Wanda, and he had an arrow knocked quicker than his thoughts could knit themselves back together.

He was too late though, because while he was still drawing the arrow back a bullet lodged itself into the agents skull and he dropped dead, Wanda jumping over him to vanish into the next building. Not swallowing down that highly annoyed and pissed off growl rumbling through his chest, he whirled around to face Barnes again, who was just lowering the rifle.

“Still too slow.”, and that was when the bomb, the real meaning behind those casual words dropped on him and Clint almost stumbled a step back. Almost. Seriously, almost.

“You remember me.”

Hawkeye, double score.

“I remember a lot of things now.”, Barnes admitted, completely ignoring the shock on Clint's face and the annoyance over a taken shot in blue eyes.  
“But not all of it.”, Clint helped out and Barnes inclined his head for a second until both of them whirled around to take out the approaching bots, and once bullet and arrow had hit home they turned back to face each other as if nothing had happened.

“No.”, Barnes spoke up again, “And he can't see me yet, and I can't face him. Steve Rogers might still be the Soldier's mission. I need to be sure I won't hurt him.” a confession that only showed how much he was trying to do the right thing. Clint was relieved and then just continued with the jokes.  
“Makes me all fuzzy inside to know you're not itching to kill me right now.”, he quipped and blue lighter blue eyes got rolled.  
“You're too weird.”, Barnes drawled and Clint's heart downright skipped upon hearing the words the Soldier had spoken to him during their last run-in all these years ago, “But that's nothing new for me now, isn't it?”

Clint was so close to start a little dance, he got the Winter Soldier to joke. That's a triple score for Hawkeye.

“Insults aside...I want to help you.”, Clint confessed and then honestly flushed when blue eyes seemed to pierce right through his outer front again. Natasha had looked at him that way so many times in the beginning months of their friendship, and now he pretty much knew where she had learned that dark look of the ages. Clint secretly thought though that on her, it still looked a billion times more dangerous, women, dude, women were dangerous creatures.

“I can't take help, not yet. I have things I need to do on my own still.”, Barnes immediately went on the defense and cocked his head to the side as if wondering if Clint's easy approach was an act.  
“I understand that.”, Clint hesitated for a moment but then let his tongue simply roll with it, he had gotten so far by being himself, time to stop being careful, “And Steve does as well. Understand, he is patient, he will wait.”, and Barnes actually snorted.

“No, he isn't. Patience is not a virtue Steve Rogers ever learned.”, he chided Steve like someone who was long suffering from Captain America's and Steve Roger's idiotic need for recklessness. Clint noted it down hungrily, knowing that Steve would hang onto every word later, drinking them in like they were the only thing able to minimize the guilt he felt.  
“Maybe not, but he will wait. He got your messages. He won't be going after you.”, Clint made the promise that Steve had made him twice already now, Barnes nodded in a sign that he had understood, turning those blue eyes back on Clint.

“But you will?”, he challenged and Clint laughed, short and slightly hysterical when he recognized the kind of look in those captivating eyes, the Soldier had looked at him that way the second time they had crossed paths.  
“We had that game, twice even.”, he reminded Barnes, whose lips twitched for a second as if wanting to curl into a smile, Clint smirked and continued, “Both ended with you disappearing in the sunset and me panting on the sidewalk. I've grown up, I can wait as well.”, he still slipped his hand into the pocket of his uniform, pulling out the sleek black StarkPhone, “But take this. There is no tracker, I swear to you, take it apart if you want to.”, he offered, fingers stiff and calm on purpose as he held the phone towards the other man.

“Why?”, Clint could have honestly swooned when there was no doubt in pale blue eyes, no mistrust, no sign that Barnes didn't believe him, and wasn't that an ego boost for the ages. A blink after having spoken as Clint went to answer, Barnes drew a knife from seemingly out of nowhere on his body and threw it into the neck of the bot approaching behind Clint's back. Clint spoke without letting it show how much that gesture thrilled him.

“One day you will realize that you are ready to come home, and I want to make sure you'll be able to find us then. And Hydra... at some point Rumlow will realize that you are not dead, and you can't run forever or always come out lucky and unscathed. You might need help, might want help. That is your chance to get it.”, Clint said and then threw the phone over to the silent man, Bucky snapped up a hand and caught it, looking down at it with no amount of scrutiny, just pure curiosity, Clint was impressed him, he still treated every piece of Stark like a ticking time bomb, “A chance to come clean, the place for a second chance.”

“Why are you doing this?”, the other man asked, shifting from one foot to the other, fingers still flying over the display of the phone, Clint wondered if he was downloading apps.  
“The name is Clint Barton. Taking in Russian tortured strays since 1999.”, he answered with a smirk nonetheless, and once more eyebrows got raised at his words, but the reply Barnes gave him left out any real reaction to it.

“I'm not Bucky, not yet, and I don't know if I will ever really be him anymore. Too much has happened.”, he said, careful almost and his blue eyes flickered down again, watching something in the streets below that only he could see.  
“Steve knows that. You got a name for yourself now? Temporary one? Winter Soldier is a mouthful.”, he could literally see the snippy remark on the other man's lips, but he must have swallowed it down because he visibly braced himself, his face showing the strain of the thoughts that must have been racing through his head, but then he breathed out and looked at Clint again.

“Yasha. For now it's Yasha.”

There was a blue streak swooshing over the roof for a split second and then they were back alone and Yasha either had seen it somehow coming, Clint cringed over his stupid brain, or he wasn't bothered by it, which was the more logical conclusion. If he knew about Wanda, he knew about Pietro as well. Clint wondered if he had a list, maybe with little doodles of them on the side, god, shut up, brain, focus.

“I guess that is my cue that people are getting a little twitchy.”, Clint explained and thought better than to offer his hand, even though he really really wanted to, instead he watched how Yasha quietly strapped his rifle back to his back, “Call when you're ready.”, he got a nod in return.  
“Make sure the idiot doesn't get himself killed.”, Yasha grunted in response and it was Clint's turn to nod, as the other assassin slowly walked to the edge of the roof that would lead him down to the smaller buildings and away from the fight, “And keep your own head on your neck.”

“We take care of each other, we're a team.”, Yasha looked back at him for a short moment after his words and then he leaned down, metal hand curling around the edge of the building.  
“I'm counting on it.”, he said and then he dropped off the roof, Clint heard the sound of boots hitting the rooftop of the building next to him not two seconds later, and he breathed out a huge sigh.

\--

Pietro was standing next to him within the next blink of an eye, “Steve was nagging, sorry.”, Clint waved the apology off, shifting his eyes over to look over the remaining battle stations.  
“It's fine. I think the conversation was over anyway. Gave him the phone, all we can do now is wait.”, and impatiently start taking this meeting apart on the inside once he was alone, Clint added in his head and a got a hard look from Pietro for his small smile.

“He took your shot.”, Pietro reminded him with a smirk and then dodged away as Clint made to swap at him with the bow.  
“Don't remind me.”, he grumbled, finding Wanda standing next to Steve in an alley below them, fingers outstretched towards the kneeling man Steve was still holding down, red mist floating in the space between them as the man talked, eyes fixed on Wanda in a complete trance.  
“You okay?”, Pietro wanted to know and Clint nodded, both of them watching the interrogation with small smiles.

“Yeah, I'm okay.”, he answered but could see that Pietro didn't believe it, damn kid spending too much time with him, he huffed and signed for it to be discussed later as he flipped the comm on again in his hear, “Hawkeye back on.”  
Natasha's “Are you okay?” was immediately overshadowed by Steve's even louder “Is he okay?”, sending Pietro an exasperated look, he pulled out an arrow again and walked back to the edge of the roof.

“I'm fine, so is he for the most part. He needs time, we will give him that. I'm gonna tell you more on the jet back home, finish up.”, Natasha and Steve both muttered angrily under their breaths but Clint ignored them, turned to glance at Pietro instead, “Fetch my arrows and give a kick to the idiot stupid enough to dare and sneak up on your sister.”, Pietro saluted and then vanished.

\--

“I have never loved CNN, but this is gold.”, Sam declared and grabbed another hand full of popcorn from the bowl standing between him and Rhodey on the couch, on his other side Steve made another whiny noise where his face was buried behind his hands. Tony snickered without looking up from his tablet, next to him Natasha grinned and then quickly buried her face behind her book again.

Bruce shook his head as he passed by on his way over to the kitchenette where Sammy and Maria were shaking their heads over the guys' antics but couldn't keep their own amused eyes off of the TV screen for long themselves. On the TV, on which Wanda was flipping through the news channels like an overeager child, skipping from one recorded live coverage of their fight to the next, but it wasn't the fight itself that had drawn the attention of news channel all over the state, it was the moment afterwards as they had waited for the clean-up crew and local authorities to take over again. 

CNN and Fox News were the ones loudest with their opinions, discussing team dynamics and making up the wildest rumors about inner rivalries. Fact was, the pictures and videos showed an aggravated Hawkeye having a go at a meekly pouting Quicksilver and an embarrassed but also distracted Captain America. Clint had been scolding Pietro and Steve for near up to half an hour for their reckless jump into action without uniforms or weapons. 

It had gone on until Tony, still in the suit, had tried to intervene to let them finally go home, but had only ended up added to the bunch, but the cameras hadn't caught that anymore, a general technical glitch setting in when Wanda, Vision and Jarvis had decided it had been enough with invading the Avenger's privacy. But it still worked perfectly to lighten the mood in the post-battle downtime, it also distracted almost everyone from the arrival of their favourite ghost.

There was Sammy who started cackling over something on her phone and skipped over to show it to Tony first, who threw his head back with a laugh that echoed from the walls, abandoning his tablet to poke Steve's knee. Sammy had already hurried over and made herself comfortable on her boyfriend's lap, showing him her phone. There was Pietro biting his lips over his own phone, shifting on the ground in front of the TV screen until he could poke his head between Vision and Wanda, showing them whatever he had seen now, having them both laugh quickly, Wanda grabbing her brother's phone and scrambling over to Natasha.

And then there was Clint, who was standing by the windows with his back to the others, his phone in his hands and smiling for an almost completely different reason.

'Seems like I can trust you to keep his head on his neck and his feet on the ground.' - Y

'I'm trying. Not easy.' - C

'Don't I know it. It's a full time job, share with the team. And keep someone to look after your own back. The kid is fast, but he is young.' - Y

Clint snorted, thinking about his answer for a moment. The first message had come when they had still been in debriefing, and it had taken all patience of the day to keep his fingers from pulling the phone out. Instead he had waited patiently until they had retreated to the living room and started watching the news reports.

'I've got Natasha.' - C

'Tell Natalia, she is slacking off. I expect better from her next time. Slap Steve over the head, he needs to stay focused. I've got to go.' - Y

'Will do.' - C

He was down right smirking when he walked over to couches again and clapped a hand loosely to the back of Steve's head, catching him off guard enough that he nearly dropped Sammy.  
“Got permission.”, Clint grinned simply as Steve whirled around and glared at him, showing him the phone, prompting a glare to turn into a scowl and Sammy to start laughing again.  
“The thought of you two ganging up on me is too frightening to entertain right now.”, Steve deadpanned back at him and Tony, Rhodey and Sam laughed loud enough to have it echo from the walls.

“Hey, Tasha.”, Clint called over to the redhead next, “You got bad grades, do better next time.”, he got a stuck out tongue as response. 

\--

When Clint shuffled into the kitchen the next morning way past what could be called early, but fuck it, Steve had called training off as a successful battle reward and it was a Saturday, he was still immediately met with a way too cheery row of thick grins. Sam, Wanda, Steve and Natasha were sitting like a gossipy troll housewives club at the dining table, newspaper shared between Sam and Steve like it always was.

Steve would skim and read the politics section and the headlines, reading the articles if they were interesting for his tastes, and then folding the parts neatly together again and setting them aside for Rhodey. Sam would only hunt for the sports section and the comics and then usually spent fifteen minutes explaining to Wanda why something was funny again, or half an hour if Vision was around.

If Tony and Bruce made it to breakfast, they fought over the economic's part like children until Steve and Rhodey separated them.

Today though all attention was on him and Clint froze next to the coffee maker, blond hair still a mess, wearing old worn out pyjamas and woolen Iron Man socks.  
“What?”, he croaked out and sleepily blinked into the round, Steve and Natasha immediately snickered and wasn't that the best sign that things were about to turn to shit for him, instead of offering a verbal reply, Steve held out the newspaper for him.

Clint grabbed it and flickered his gaze over the front page, grimacing at the blown up photo of Steve, Pietro and him, his raised index finger shoved in their faces, making Steve go cross-eyed and he dreaded looking down to the headlines.  
“Even Avengers need Dad's approval!”, he read out loud and groaned, while everyone else broke out laughing and cackling, “Well, it could be worse.”

“I may use this chance to bring to your attention that Sir is playing with the ideas of copyrighting the term 'Hawkdad'.”, Jarvis announced and Sam howled, while Clint set the newspaper down on the table and groaned, sitting down and taking a long sip of his coffee, “It is already trending on Twitter and Tumblr, I can offer you some fanart...”, Jarvis sounded downright cheeky and Clint pointed a finger towards the ceiling and then snapped it right back when he became aware of what he was doing.

“Don't you dare, J!”, he growled and then kicked out a foot towards Natasha who was laughing so much little snorts left her nose.  
“Damn, you're grouchy.”, Sam commented on his left as Clint chose to ignore Steve's and Natasha's thick grins, stupid children...oh fuck you brain, “Didn't sleep last night? Up all night to prepare more lectures?”, Clint glared at the other man and then wordlessly reached for a plate and some pancakes, drowning them in extra syrup just to make a point.

“You didn't sleep much.”, Natasha piped up from across him, ducking under Steve's arm to grab the jam, “I could hear you tossing for hours and you kept on snickering. If I didn't know any better, I would have said you were talking with Laura but Lila is sick, she would take every hour of sleep she can get. What have you been doing, Clint?”, she wanted to know and Clint shoved a pancake into his mouth, blushing bright red to the roots of his hair.

“Oh my god.”, Sam suddenly blurted out and shoved himself right up against Clint's side, “You were texting with Barnes again, weren't you?”  
“His name is Yasha.”, Clint called out in a reflex motion and then clapped his hands over his mouth, letting his forehead fall to the table as Natasha started laughing loud enough to wake up the entire base and Steve showed all teeth with his grin, only Wanda looked slightly disturbed.

Fact was, yes, he had and yes, Clint was also painfully aware of how childish this whole behavior was, he had felt guilty enough to leave voice mails for Laura, messages she was probably crying with laughter over now. If Laura had ever forgiven him for something it was his unlimited crush on the Winter Soldier, even Natasha had started calling it adorably idiotic a couple of years back.

“I hate you all.”, he grumbled against the table, jumping slightly when a chair creaked over the ground and then as a strong and warm hand clamped down on his shoulder.  
“Point 1, I am glad he has someone to talk to now. Point 2, I am even more glad it's you.”, Steve began to list and Clint dared a glance up at him, silly stupid grin still in place, “Point 3, welcome to the excessive worrying of a mother hen extraordinaire.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”, Clint asked and straightened up again, watching Steve walk over to the coffee machine, feeling strangely warm on the inside, Natasha was still snickering and Sam leaned back with the kind of grin on his face that told Clint that he already knew what was coming. It was also good to see him this happy again after those dark days.  
“After everything that I've seen and heard in the last one and a half years, there is a lot of Bucky still left in him, more even now. And Bucky Barnes was a very special kind of mother hen, and one look at the way you fight and I won't even have to worry about him being annoyed over my recklessness anymore.”, Steve quipped, looking way too content.

Clint was just happy that Steve was okay with all of this, this texting, him having talked to Yasha, he was taking it extremely well.

And then he cringed as he thought back to the side note about Pietro still being young in covering his back. Seems Yasha had watched him already.

Steve smirked, pouring coffee into a mug and then holding it out towards Rhodey who stumbled into the room just then, “During the first mission I did with the Commandos, Monty stumbled over a fallen Nazi and nearly ran head first into a grenade. Bucky didn't even allow him to go take a leek alone in the following weeks. Have fun.”, Steve declared and Clint scowled at him.

\--

It took a week but soon enough Yasha's messages became coded short lines and he traveled too much and hid too much to start up real conversations again, or so much Clint assumed, not listening for a second to Natasha teasing him with the possibility that he had annoyed Yasha away. He kept to a strict shedule and without a single clue to what fucking coded language the Soldier was using, Clint was left with more than one question mark.

It was Pietro's own frustrated mumbling that helped in the end, and the truth fell from Clint's eyes like a drop of water and he wanted to send himself to the moon, because it had been so fucking obvious, and he couldn't even blame Pietro for hitting him over the head before falling over laughing.

Howling Commandos' code. 

Of course. Decrypted messages. 

Clint Barton was an idiot. 

Or thinking too complicated. Yeah, let's go with that version. And after digging through half a dozen boxes of Coulson's belongings on the farm – that he still refused to hand over, if Coulson wanted them, he could bring his sorry ass to the farm himself – Clint returned to base with the little brown book and could finally decipher the weird mess of words. Dodging Natasha's questions over why he just didn't finally bring Steve into helping him, with him this dilemma could have been solved much quicker, but Clint knew that he was a little too stubborn and a little too proud of his own dignity and ego.

Once the curtain of deceit had fallen off though, it was simply to understand what Yasha was trying to communicate. Old missions. Always the same, city name first and then a short order. A system that quickly filled a big file and brought explanations for several assassinations and supposed accidents in the last fifty years – Clint noted with a little disappointment that Kennedy was not among them.

One message brought everything to a stop. The last that had come in before Yasha had gone under ground once more.

The 23th one had Clint reeling back from the table in his office and stumbling over to the window before Pietro could have even caught the dropped tablet.  
"Clint? What's going on?", he was at his side in a second, one hand pressed to his back while Clint heaved air into his lungs and tried to blink the tears away.  
"Hey, come on, you're scaring me here, what is going on? What message did you read?", Pietro demanded to know, snapping his fingers in Clint's face.

"22.", Clint forced through his lips, while he slowly sunk to his knees, too much relief, too much gratitude, too much of everything making his knees goes weak. Pietro waited until he was sitting and then dashed over to the table again, quickly scrolling through the tablet.

'Odessa, Moscow. My order was to take the brunets in and to kill the redhead. I didn't follow orders, no one got killed. And we need to talk. Face to face, in Moscow. North. River. Don't keep me waiting too long.'

Grimacing upon the date of the message, dating it back three days and six hours, Pietro nevertheless smiled and turned to look at a still kneeling Clint fighting to get control back over himself.  
“Well, what are you waiting for, old man, let's get going, Dad. You have a date with your crush.”, he quipped and blue eyes snapped up to glare at him, losing lots of the intended heat by still being in shock.  
“It's not even funny, boy.”, Clint argued but Pietro snorted, set the tablet down and then walked over to the archer, reaching out and pulling him back to his feet.

“Quite on the contrary, Dad, it's hilarious. Come on, you find Steve and clear us out. I find Wanda and Natasha and pack a bag, meeting at the jet in fifteen.”, Pietro grinned and was gone within the next blink of an eye. Clint huffed and dragged a hand over his face, picking up the tablet again. His hands weren't shaking, but they could have been, he was certainly feeling skittish enough for it.

He was going to Moscow. He was going to meet with Yasha and get answers about the girls.

\--

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can find me under strike-team-alpha on tumblr now


	21. Russian Nights and Long Awaited Homecomings

Natasha opted out of coming with them, which had less to do with not wanting to overwhelm Yasha with potential memories and distracting from the mission at hand and more to do with the cluster of Red Room activity Sharon Carter had picked up via her CIA colleagues in South Africa. Natasha had whisked a whining Sam off to investigate, and Vision had followed to ensure that neither drove the other to jumping off the plane mid-Atlantic flight, after Steve had nicely asked. Rhodey staid behind, nursing his concussion, and Tony and Bruce were the last people you wanted along on a stealth mission.

Steve himself had, begrudgingly and painful as it might have been, cleared them off to fly out to Russia, Clint knew that it couldn't have been easy to sit back patiently and let others help your oldest friend, the more he admired Steve's strength in holding back. And someone needed to stay behind for emergencies anyway, you never knew when Rumlow got bored again. Steve promised to have an eye on Tony, Tony promised to have an eye on Steve, Radcliff promised to have an eye on both of them, and Clint could go.

So he boarded his jet with Pietro and Wanda, bags packed for a few days and his heart filled with a hope he hadn't even felt himself capable of anymore.

\--

'Landing in Moscow in ten minutes.'

'Take a cab to the Northern Cemetery. Cross over to the riverside. The abandoned garden shed 200 feet from the broken fence.'

\--

They didn't find Yasha, at least not right away, instead they found an abandoned wooden shed, just enough room to store a table and a broken small bed.

But it was what was on the table that sent Clint's head into a blind panicked tunnel, had him scramble out of the shed into the fresh cold winter air again, pushing Wanda away when she ran over to help, demanding to know what was wrong.

He could only run and run until he crashed hands first into the ice cold water.

On the table, there had been a Dragonov rifle. An old blackened Dragonov rifle with enough blood on it to let it shine red.

On the table, half wrapped into a gray blanket, there had been his daughter's rifle.

\--

Clint was still dry heaving into the river when Pietro emerged from the shed again, Wanda a grounding presence at his side, one hand in his hair, the other on his back, stroking calmly.  
"I'm gonna call Cap.", Pietro announced and Clint could feel Wanda nod, but he shook his head, fought against the nausea until he was able to look up and catch Pietro's concerned eyes.

"No.", he protested and flinched at the sound of his voice, kept his eyes from dropping down to the thankfully wrapped up package Pietro was holding in his hands now.  
"Yeah, fuck that no, Clint. I am calling Cap, and Stark. And I don't care what you think about this.", snapped in that impatient tone that grounded Clint more than it angered him, he had waited so long for this side of the kid to reappear again that every time Pietro got snappish again felt like balm on an inflamed wound. 

Pietro glared at him some more and then set the package down and Clint quickly turned over the river again, Wanda resumed her quiet soothing humming as Pietro opened the StarkPhone. Steve must have picked up right away, something that almost brought Clint to an eye roll, only holding back when his stomach protested, figured that Steve was staring at his phone all day.  
"Cap, we need you here, Clint is slipping...yeah, I'll send you the coordinates.", Pietro explained quietly while Clint tried to breathe through the red in his vision, "We found Commander Viktora's rifle."

Rifle. Rifle. Rifle. Sarah's rifle. That goddamned fucking black rifle.

Breathe, Wanda's voice was suddenly in his mind, wrapping him into a nest of warmth and comfort and Clint keened against the sob edged in his throat, he needed to keep it together, he told himself and felt Wanda smile on the inside, letting him clutch onto the stability of her mind until he had centered himself again. Pietro chattering down numbers to Steve and presumably Tony and Radcliff.

But whatever Cap had intended to tell Pietro next, got cut short when a precise bullet got shot through the display of the phone, passing by Pietro's ear so close that he yelled loudly and threw the phone away, it shattered on the stones at the riverbank and was dead. Pietro cursed before rushing over to pin Wanda and Clint to the ground.  
"We have company.", was his quickly whispered observation while Clint grunted under his weight, spitting water out of his mouth as Wanda struggled not to get half drowned herself.

"Oh really, Piet.", she grouched, spitting out wet hair and scratching at her brother's arms to move away, rolling out from under him and out of the water.  
"Lemme up, lemme up.", Clint snapped and snarled and pushed his elbows back until Pietro let him move as well, and all three of them ducked behind the rusted remains of an abandoned car that must have been parked next to the shed at some point before being left to weather and winter.

"Where did the shot come from?", Clint asked, already pulling out the gun he had brought, while Wanda wrenched her brother's face around to see for herself that he hadn't gotten hurt, Pietro grunted and pointed to the east. To the east, where in almost a quarter of a mile away a lone building stood out among the wrecked cabins of this ghost part of Russia's capital, and Clint cursed.

Loud. And colorful.

And then grinned. Grinned and smiled and smirked and looked so darn excited within one blink that Wanda and Pietro both raised their eyebrows at him, especially when he pocketed his gun again. With the horrible weather conditions today, the storming winds, the low hanging clouds, the bad sight, the high humidity, the thick snow on the ground, there were only a hand full of people that Clint trusted to be capable of making that shot.

His little hawk was kidnapped. That girl Fury had had on the radar for years was only twelve. He himself was out of the question, so that left...

"Well then, kids, let's go and meet Yasha."

\--

Clint led them towards the highest building for miles, and every step on the way Pietro had to fight against the urge to just grab him and his sister and dash them back to the Quinjet, just go, get themselves out of whatever mess this could turn into. Pietro trusted Clint, trusted him blind and defenseless, trusted him with his life and Wanda's, knew the older man would never do anything to risk their lives.

But he was also crushing harder on the most dangerous assassin the world had seen so far than Stark did on Cap, and if something was able to cloud Clint's judgment, then it was the desperate longing to save another person from their demons. Instincts were hard to shake, and Clint's second nature was bringing home strays.

It took a few minutes, but then Clint stopped them on a deserted street corner, roughly a mile away from the where the shot must have come from, and seriously, Pietro was going to hold that grudge for ages. He had liked that phone, he had pictures on that phone and he had just gotten everyone their own personal ringtones.

And that choice had not been easy.

“Come out, come out.”, Clint drawled and Pietro narrowed his eyes at him and the way he kept on rubbing his hands against each other. Wanda shoved an elbow against his side to have him stop, Pietro grumbled and shifted the rifle higher over his shoulder.  
“I'm not a dog.”, the annoyed voice from behind them had Pietro and Clint jump almost a foot in the air and then whirl around with hammering hearts while Wanda was already smiling at the scrubby form of Yasha.

Bucky Barnes in the flesh.

Holding a rifle and wearing so many different layers of black clothing that Pietro got dizzy, next to him Clint started grinning.  
“Took your time.”, Yasha smirked his way and Pietro nearly growled, feeling shockingly protective suddenly, but Wanda poked him again.  
“Yeah, sorry.”, Clint apologized, going so far as to reach up a hand and scratching his neck awkwardly and Pietro wondered how this man had ever gotten women like Natasha and Mum interested in him.

And again he got poked for his mean thoughts and Pietro turned to snap quietly at his sister as Clint rolled their eyes over their behavior and made a step closer to Yasha.  
“It took some time, you have to understand this hits close to home. I need to keep my head in the game, try to think past the billion questions I don't have answers to.”, Clint explained and Pietro and Wanda stopped their doings for a moment, both of them crowding closer again.

“I have them.”, Yasha said and held Clint's eyes, “At least to a great deal of them. That.”, he pointed to the rifle in Pietro's hands, “It belongs to Commander Sarah Viktora, they call her Red Scope. Team Alpha, two other girls. Pierce wanted them taken care of, take Seaway and St.Oaks in for testing and get rid of Viktora, and like I said I couldn't go through with it. She was fire and violence, already half delirious when I found her in Moscow, but still fighting with every breath in her body. Rumlow took Seaway and St.Oaks, I do not know where they were taken, nor do I know what happened to Viktora after I handed her over. What I do know is that the blood on that rifle does not belong to her, it's mine. She shot me.”

“She...she shot you?”, Clint asked and though he looked shocked, his voice was also swimming with awe and pride over his daughter, or at least Pietro supposed that it had to be that.  
“She did, hit me in the shoulder and the thigh, would have killed me if not for Zola's little tricks. Thing is, I brought her back to Odessa alive, and if my information are correct you already know that Rumlow has them, that all of them are still alive.”, Yasha continued and Clint nodded.

“Good.”, the former soldier went on flawlessly, “I'm here to help you find them, and I know just the way we can achieve that.”, he offered and Pietro could feel how every muscle in Clint started to grin and glow with freaking pure hope, “And if I can kick some Hydra ass while doing so, it's only better. It's time to stop running.”

\--

“I need your help.”, Yasha spoke up while Pietro and Wanda glared at each other behind Clint's back again, but he seemed more amused by them than annoyed. Clint raised an eyebrow.  
“Our help? What can we...”, he started, confused on what they could be doing that the Soldier couldn't, come on here, buddy, don't destroy more legends for me.  
“No.”, Yasha interrupted him quickly though, pinning him with a stare from those lively and suddenly so warm blue eyes that had Clint continuously shifting in fussy shivers, “I need your help, Barton.”

“My help?”, Clint repeated, completely baffled and surprised, on either side of him, Pietro and Wanda fell silent, “What could I possibly do for you?”, and christ man, get yourself under control, you're married, you're not seventeen anymore. Yasha blinked, seemingly perplexed at his outbreak and Clint tried to force the embarrassed blush down. But seriously, he was glad someone was finally not underestimating him, was happy that someone saw his skills and knew what he could do, but come on, buddy. You're the freaking Winter Soldier. You do what I do, only more graceful and silent. 

And looking probably a bazillion times cooler while doing it.

“You told me that it would be best if Hydra thinks I'm dead for as long as possible. And I fully agree.”, for a moment, just a moment, Clint was not looking into Yasha's guarded face, but into the face of Steve Rogers' old friend, the same 'I can't believe you're so stupid' smirk on his lips. He hated that look on Steve, he couldn't even begin to put into words what kind of emotions this brought up now, seemingly nothing he wanted to feel while he had the kids standing right there.  
“Okay.”, Clint responded slowly, “Right, you're right. So...you need me to kill someone? Steal something?”, he guessed and Yasha smiled, crooked little thing, but it was there.

“I need you to steal someone if you are willing.”, Yasha corrected his guess slightly and Clint blinked, huh, that was unexpected.  
“Someone?”, Clint repeated to make sure, but Yasha simply nodded, “Huh...well okay.”, Pietro glanced at him with one eyebrow raised and Wanda was gently poking at his mind, but Clint simply grinned. And why not, doing a favor for the Winter Soldier, once a lifetime chance, and Yasha owed him one then.

Clint was close to bouncing on his feet. Dream come true. Hawkeye working with the Winter Soldier, god, it was almost possible to forget the bloody rifle. 

“I have a safehouse close by. We can discuss details there if you and your teammates are alright with following me there.”, Yasha offered and Wanda agreed before Clint or Pietro could have even opened their mouths, blinking they turned their face to how she was still only looking at Yasha, who seemed more and more amused with every passing second.  
“I want warm water. My brother thought it necessary to throw me into ice cold mucky water.”, she pointed out and Pietro huffed.

“He shot at us.”, he complained and Wanda reached out to pinch his ear without looking, Pietro dashed away a little and pouted at her, Clint sighed.  
“We are gladly coming with you.”, he decided and then shoved Wanda and Pietro both forward.

\--

The small house Yasha led them to was a to Clint well known cabin just off the highway leading into Moscow's heart and he stared hard at Yasha when the other man casually leaned down to get the key out from under the continuously empty flower pot.  
“What the fuck!”, it bubbled from his lips, accompanied by a sound that Clint was really not proud of, but it drew Pietro and Wanda up short on the stairs and Yasha raised both eyebrows, frozen in his bend over position that made it so incredibly hard to keep focus and not stare at that ass.

“How in the hell do you know of this place?”, he tried not to sound too pissed off and alarmed, the last thing he wanted now was to trigger the Soldier into becoming defensive. Yasha though only looked completely confused.  
“How do I...?”, he began and then shook his head, straightening up again and throwing the keys over to Pietro who caught them with taking his eyes off of them, Wanda sighed and took the keys herself, shouldering her bag higher and vanishing into the cabin, sighing with pure delight upon the warmth flooding into her limbs.

“Clint, this is my safehouse. I used to come here after missions while I was Natalia's instructor.”, and then it was Clint's turn to blink, “How the hell do you know this place?”, came the question right back at him and Clint flipped a brightly smirking Pietro the finger over his shoulder.  
“I'm going to kill Natasha when I get back. She told me this was hers. Untraceable, undetectable. Said it was safe and off the radar, we spent weeks in this place, laying low. This was basically our field hospital.”, Clint exclaimed and dragged both his hands down his face, “And all this time we could have run into Hydra, the Red Room or you. Fucking hell, Romanov.”, he cursed.

“Can we go in now?”, Yasha asked with not a small amount of amusement in his voice and Clint grumbled but pushed Pietro to go inside, Yasha closed the door behind them and they all sighed as the warmth of the cabin warmed their frozen faces.

\--

Pietro wanted popcorn, popcorn and preferably something else than fruit tea, but his sister offered him exactly that as he sat down on the couch in the warm cabin. It was bigger than it had looked like on first sight, a big living room with two long couches and a small kitchen area with a table that looked as if it had seen some shit, and then a small corridor leading to bedroom and a surprisingly modern bathroom.

Pietro had not expected half abandoned safe-houses to look like this, but he had also not expected that his first time sitting in one would include staring at the man he called Dad blushing under the attention of the world's most dangerous assassin slash oldest POW. Blushing while getting the details to kidnapping what sounded like a Russian billionaire right out of the heart of Moscow's high society circles.

Clint was drooling and glowing and lapping up every ounce of attention, there was no other way to phrase it and Pietro wasn't sure if he preferred to laugh about it or try to hide from it. He couldn't even blame Clint for his adorable star-gazing eyes that were focused on every movement, every word coming from Yasha.

“If you slip in here and then turn left...”, Yasha was saying, bend over the table to slide his finger over the blueprint, not far from where Clint was leaning against the table across from him, flawlessly continuing the started sentence.  
“And then drop down again in the bathroom and wait in the shadows until he is done with his entertainment. That's a good plan.”, he agreed and they looked at each other for a moment before turning back to flesh out more details about the kidnapping plan.

Turning his head to gaze into the kitchen area when he felt his sister's presence in his mind, Pietro grimaced at her and Wanda rolled her eyes.  
“Finishing each other's sentences.”, she grumbled in the privacy of their connection, “I'm gonna start digging for bleach soon, kids are not supposed to see their Dad flirting like a teenager. Want more tea?”, she asked and Pietro held up the cup he hadn't even half emptied yet.  
“Vision and you, you're no better.”, he shot back at her non-verbally and Wanda scowled at him, showing more tea leaves into the little cube to go into the kettle.

“Don't get petty, brother.”, she shot back at him, huffing even in the privacy of his mind as he rolled his eyes and turned back to observe Clint and Yasha, “Doesn't Sammy have a friend or so? Or Quentin and Zachary? You hang out with them so often, they have to know someone.”  
“Wanda, I seriously don't want to talk about this now.”, he growled, apparently not only letting the sound slip over the connection to Wanda but past his lips as well because Yasha and Clint stopped their conversation and turned to face him with raised eyebrows.

“Nothing.”, Pietro grouched and grumbled into his tea as his sister snickered, Yasha turned back to the maps and the blueprint directly, only Clint's gaze lingered a little longer on him, but Pietro refused to return it. If Clint acted like a lovesick teenager, he could act like a petulant little child, it was only fair.

“Anyway.”, Clint gave up after a moment, “You got everything I would need?”, he asked Yasha who nodded over to a dufflebag by the fireplace, “Nice.”, Clint rubbed his hands and went over to it, “Alright, here is the plan. The sun is going down soon, so I'm gonna go and get ready and then head out. We're switching phones, Yasha, I need a back-up chance but Pietro or Wanda, one of them needs to call Steve back and give more than a short 'we're fine' explanation considering that Steve heard a shot hitting Pietro's phone before the call cut off.”, Clint listed down and Wanda and Pietro both nodded, Yasha walked into the kitchen and grabbed an apple, leaning against the counter next to Wanda who smiled at him.

“Great.”, Clint continued and then preened for a second as he pulled a black jacket from the bag, “Now, to the most important agenda.”, shrugging on the jacket, he started slipping in a couple of knives, “If Hydra comes party crashing, you're going. No room for protests.”, he stopped whatever complaints could have come up, Yasha looked as unhappy about that order as Wanda and Pietro did, “I don't care, this is my decision, and you're gonna follow it. You're gonna take Yasha to the jet and make yourself disappear, get in contact with Steve, but no one comes out to find me, no one tries to fight back.”, he added with a hard look towards Yasha who rolled his eyes but nodded.

“Be careful.”, Pietro warned from across the room, and Clint smiled at him, bending down to get another gun from the bag.  
“Make him swear.”, the twins turned on him the second his back was turned, both snapping their heads around to stare at Yasha who blinked back, especially at the wide eyed begging look Wanda send his way.

“Me?”, he spluttered past his lips, everyone ignored the annoyed puff of breath Clint let out as he grabbed a pair of handcuffs and a rope and stuffed both of it into a black linen bag, “What on earth makes you believe he would listen to me?”  
“Oh, you know.”, Pietro grinned and set the cup down on the couch table, “Stories, experience, gut feeling.”, the speedster tried, smirking when he caught Clint's glowering glare, but Pietro had zero intention of holding back. If Clint acted like a fool, someone needed to enjoy it.

“Fine.”, Yasha groaned and then ducked his head to catch Clint's blushing face, “Come back in one piece, be careful. Don't tempt me to go all Captain America on you, I can and I will use it against you.”, next to him Wanda snorted and took the kettle off the stove.  
“Believe me, if Cap had Clint under control, we wouldn't be concerned, Clint's immune to him and that disappointed Steve face.”, she told merrily and Pietro chuckled when Clint turned even redder.

“Is that so?”, Yasha spoke quietly and then pushed himself off the counter, relaxed easy smile slipping off his face in the next second as he stalked towards Clint who froze mid stretch before dropping his arms down again, “Let's see if this works then.”, and Yasha was gone, replaced with the calculating Winter Soldier approaching Clint on soundless steps, Pietro's laugh died on his lips and he watched with baited breath how the Soldier cornered Clint against the wall next to the fireplace.

Blue eyes widened, Clint was staring open mouthed at the other man, and Pietro exchanged a look with his sister but Wanda waved his concerned thoughts away, pointing at Clint again, completely relaxed, and he wondered what she was seeing. The wooden wall creaked a little when a flesh and a metal hand got slapped against it left and right of Clint's head, who shivered from head to toe, and Pietro groaned, perfectly breaking the heavy silence in the room.

Figured the sucker liked it.

“Be careful, don't take any unnecessary risks and come back in one piece.”, the Winter Soldier's cold and emotionless voice rang out, and the warning in it was clear, “Still a lot to do, Hawkeye, this is only step 1.”, and just as quickly as he had switched, Yasha was smiling again and pushing himself away from the wall and Clint, walking over to Pietro and sitting down on the ground with a knife and another apple, “Good to know there is something you're not immune to then.”

“Right.”, Clint caught himself slowly, “Alright.”, grabbing the black mask and the gloves, he walked over to the front door, and Pietro smirked upon the dazed look in Clint's eyes, “Don't forget to call Steve.”

\--

“Clint did what now?”, Steve yelled loud enough that Pietro grimaced and sent an apologizing look over to Yasha who had visibly flinched, but the older man then waved his hand and sat back down on the floor next to the fireplace, “Pietro!”, Steve called for his attention again and Pietro looked over to his sister, but Wanda shrugged her shoulders and turned back to the teapot as if it held all answers of the universe. Pietro wondered how much tea one could drink before going crazy before focusing back on explaining their situation.

“He says it's a piece of cake and if he does need back-up, he'll give us a call.”, even Yasha scoffed at his weak explanation and comfort, Pietro glared right back, “Hey, if you think you can have a better comfort for them, why don't you speak.”, he snapped at the Soldier still biting on his apple before realizing his words and slapping a hand over his mouth.  
“Pietro, who are you talking to?”, Steve wanted to know, turning aggravated now, Pietro pouted, this was so unfair, he was not going to be lectured for this.

Clint was the idiot, not him. Clint was the lovesick teenager trying to impress the guy, not him. 

“God, is this always so complicated with you guys? How much paperwork does this follow up?”, Yasha grumbled and surprised Pietro laughed shortly.  
“You don't wanna know.”, he admitted and blue eyes switched over to gauge his honesty, Pietro deadpanned back at him, but then Yasha rolled his eyes and moved up, walking back over to him and sitting down next to him on the couch.

“Come on, put that thing on speaker. This is a trainwreck and I don't like trains.”, staring a little dumbstruck at Yasha for a second, Pietro then whipped his head around and searched for Wanda's. She shrugged her shoulders again, couldn't hurt if it was his choice now, could it, she asked within the privacy of his mind, before going back to her freaking tea.  
“Sure.”, Pietro mumbled and placed the phone on the table, pressing the button before leaning back again, “Hey, guys.”

“Don't hey me here, boy.”, Tony piped up then, “Capsicle is doing this pacey-growly thing again, it's really unnerving and wearing out the carpet I chose specifically for this office. Where is Clint, Pietro?”, but before Pietro could have ranted off another series of sentences, there was a hand on his mouth and someone else was talking.  
“Stevie, stop ruining Stark's carpet and sit down. Barton is running an errand for me, he'll be back in some hours, until then there are some things we need to talk about.”, and on the other side of the line, it was dead silent.

At least until Steve cleared his throat twice before speaking.

“Buc...Yasha?”, and the hand on Pietro's mouth got lowered as Wanda walked over with the mugs of tea and gracefully held one out to Yasha, who took it with a small smile, Pietro took his with frozen limbs, shifting closer to the assassin when Wanda slipped onto the couch on his other side.  
“There...there is no need for Yasha anymore, Rogers. Call me Bucky, Stevie.”, and the Russian lilt in his voice disappeared completely, making place for the unmistakable accent of the alleys of Brooklyn, “I think it's time I stop hiding and come back home.”

There was a sound coming through the speakers of the phone that sounded like a dying pig, and Pietro couldn't believe that it had come from Steve of all people, but then Stark was laughing in the background. Wanda smiled into her mug.

\--

“Do you know who he is?”, Clint asked the second Pietro had whisked the prisoner away to the storage room at the back of the cabin, Wanda trailing after him with the rope. Bucky closed the front door and walked back over to the table, shifting maps and blueprints into a pile before dropping them into the fireplace, all while choosing not to answer Clint.

The archer wrecked another hand through his hair and stumbled over to a chair in the kitchen area, heart pounding in his chest, blood rushing through his veins with the undeniable longing need for revenge, for violence, calling for actions he had to push down. But it was hard, it was almost impossible, alone the thought that this bastard was just down the corridor, unable to run, unable to get away, it was driving his mind to the edge. Clint cursed and buried his face in his hands, trying to breathe.

A cold hand on his neck let the tension fall away, a bone deep breath shaking through his body and snapping his mind to total focus again.  
“His name is Aljoscha Aljenka, 44, German-Russian, though he likes to deny the first.”, Bucky said, pushing a little more against his neck until Clint was leaning forward, heart slowly calming down again, and that because the Winter Soldier was grounding him with a metal hand on his neck.

Clint Barton, you're one fucked up mess.

“I'm interested in him because his father had a big part in helping Hydra buy me from the Russians. Aljenka has answers, I want them.”, Barnes explained and Clint let out a dark chuckle, straightening up again when the other man let him and dragging a hand roughly down his face, Bucky dropped into the chair next to him, “But something tells me that isn't the reason you are reacting this bad.”  
“Ivan was an asshole, and he more than deserved the bullet I put in his head, even though learning this now, I regret that I couldn't have drawn it out a little more.”, Clint seethed, “But you're right, it's not what is getting to me. Aljoscha Aljenka is Commander Viktora's older brother, one of the people who abused and kept her locked up until the day I found her. It's bringing some bad memories back.”

“You took her in?”, Bucky wanted to know, in the corridor Pietro and Wanda were walking back towards them, Clint smiled.  
“She's my daughter, Barnes, in all but blood. And it's gonna be an icy day in hell when I let Hydra and especially Rumlow get away with what they did to her and the other two.”, and Clint found the deep rooted determination mirrored back in Bucky's eyes.

Pietro and Wanda returned in the next moment and they shifted to distract themselves from the chained man in the backroom, making dinner and then talking some more until they settled in for one night in Russia, making plans to head back to the US first thing come morning. Pietro and Wanda took the bed in the bedroom, out like a light barely five minutes after having said goodnight. Clint and Bucky took the couches in the living room and they talked for far longer still, and even after it got quiet, Clint couldn't stop thinking about how much things were going to change now.

\--

The night was cut short when Clint's instincts let him shoot awake, body flying up on the couch as a shadow leaped up from the other couch, stumbling into the table before crashing into the wall, hands raised to clutch at long brown hair, fingers digging into what could only be pounding temples. Clint moved slowly, pushing the blanket away, not able to know right away just with whom he was dealing with in the darkness of the living room.

He knew only too well that demons were strongest in the night, were most dangerous when asleep. He knew only too well how long disorientation could hold up.

And no one could even start to imagine with what kind of monsters Barnes was dealing with in his head, so he approached the situation with more care than he would have with any of the others.

“Barnes?”, he asked carefully and came closer with raised hands, palms up front, showing his intentions right away. Blue eyes flashed for a second, but Clint kept the flinch away from his body and staid put as the shadows flickered over Barnes's face, “You okay there?”, but he didn't get an answer as Bucky took one good look at him and then bounded from the cabin.

\--

He caught up to Bucky down at the river, forced his steps to slow down to a calm walk when he saw the brunet man kneeling in the shallow water, hands cupping water into his hands to splash into his face, chest heaving with too quick breaths.  
“It doesn't mean you're weak, you know.”, he spoke up quietly, not surprised when the soldier tensed up completely, hands freezing in the water, feet readying to jump, “It means you're fighting. And fighting against something that isn't really there, those are the hardest fights one could ever face. But you are, facing your demons, facing a past you didn't live, facing memories you didn't know you made. You're strong, Barnes, not weak.”

Clint stopped maybe three feet behind the kneeling man, watched how Barnes slowly let his muscles relax again, as much as they would outside in a non-secure surrounding anyway. You didn't stop being an assassin, never, you never stopped being paranoid, you just learned to live with it, learned to let your subconsciousness make the decisions, instead of setting your mind to it 24/7.  
“What would you know about it.”, Bucky growled through the words, looking at ease despite the cold water, and Clint could almost understand why that would be the case, the thought made him sick, but they still had a long way to go to even begin to understand what Bucky had been through.

And maybe they never would.

“I doubt that anyone understands even a single thing of what happened to me in those seventy years. There are so many people, so many versions of Bucky Barnes in my head, I don't know myself yet who I am supposed to be.”, and slowly Bucky got to his feet and turned around, taking a few steps out of the water until he was standing next to Clint, both of them watching the distant lights of Moscow's inner districts.

“Be your own hero.”, Clint answered and Bucky snorted, “No, I'm serious. Don't think about what you have to be, don't think about maybe scaring anyone with your decisions. Don't think about disappointing people, especially not Steve.”, nailed it, Clint thought as he saw Bucky flinch, “Be who you wanna be, find out what you want, and if that means taking apart the people inside of you, then so be it. Take the revenge Sergeant Barnes wants, take the skills the asset learned, take the instinct of the Soldier, take strength from the good Yasha did, take comfort in the memories Bucky has of his childhood, of his friends. Take that and become a new Bucky Barnes.”

Bucky was the first to sit down on the grass, but Clint followed quickly, finding a strange comfort in the cold but steady ground, in the silence and the calm of the early morning. Russia was a beautiful country, if you took all of Natasha's, Sarah's and his memories and wiped them from his mind, he would never be able to take down his guards anymore, but he could still see the beauty and admire the strength of Mother Russia.  
“You speak like you know how that works.”, Bucky spoke carefully, “And I know that where you came from, it was a long way to be where you are now, but it's still not seventy years that were taken away from you, no one turned you into a puppet for seven decades.”

“You're right.”, Clint agreed silently, “In a way at least. None of us might ever understand what you've been through in all those years, none of us might ever grasp the whole horror of what was done to you.”, he turned his head slightly and was surprised to find blue eyes staring back at him, “But that doesn't mean that we can't relate in some way. Tony woke up in Afghanistan, his body changed forever, no questions asked, decisions made for him. You yourself gave Natasha the first signs of who she really is inside, something she has been looking for for years. Wanda and Pietro know how it feels to see yourself as nothing more than a Hydra experiment. Steve, Rhodey and Sam, they all know what it means to move on after a war. Everyone has their demons and no one has to fight alone. Be your own hero, Bucky, your family will do the rest.”

“The brainwashing, the no control, the gaps, the...”, but in a sign of surely complete lack of sanity, Clint bit his lips and reached out to stop the metal hand from twisting the sleeve around, Bucky froze, wide eyes looking over to him. Scared that he might hurt someone without intending to.  
“His name is Loki, it wasn't seventy years, but it felt like it. I killed 36 people under his control on the helicarrier alone, 13 of them were my friends. To this day, I have no memories of those five days, flashes, sensations, but everything else is complete darkness until the moment Natasha rammed my head against the railing. If you ever need to talk, Bucky, you know how to find me.”

\--

“Nervous?”, Clint asked quietly, sitting down across from Bucky, who kept on watching their prisoner with continued mistrusting eyes until Clint was seated. In the cockpit of the Quinjet Wanda was asleep in the co-pilot's seat and Pietro was quietly bickering with Angie, steering the jet through the early morning.  
“Quite on the contrary.”, Bucky admitted after a moment, “Never been so calm, or at least not in a very long time. Excited, yeah, but not nervous. I'm ready to come home.”, he said and smiled in the end, prompting Clint to grin right back, “You think Steve is...”

“Running up the walls and climbing the ceiling? Driving everyone completely insane? Oh yeah. Sam has probably moved back to DC by now, Rhodey found a suddenly very important mission for the Pentagon and Bruce has gone back to India. Nat has either shot Steve or herself, Vision has started his plans for human extinction, and well...Tony is probably living every second of it.”, Clint guessed and Bucky laughed, quietly, almost completely silent. Clint had seen it so often already, holding back on laughter and happiness, holding back on letting yourself feel it, it would come, they just had to give him time.

“Thanks.”, Bucky said after a moment, and Clint knew exactly what it was for and nodded, before turning to look over to Aljenka, “Wanna have a little chat?”, Bucky supposed and Clint flashed his teeth in a dangerous smirk.  
“Itching to tell him just who exactly took him in.”, Clint explained, fingers curling into a fist as the memories took a hold of him again, the cold darkened room, the chains, those terrified green eyes, the frail ghost of a girl.

“I do believe he knows about the Avengers, he'll know who Hawkeye is.”, Bucky teased but Clint could see out of the corner of his eye that blue eyes were watching their prisoner as well.  
“Yeah.”, Clint agreed hesitantly, “But that's not the face he needs to see.”, he told the other man and then got to his feet, walking over to where Aljenka was cuffed to the wall, Bucky followed him without a question.

When he was close, he reached down and ripped the bag off of the dark haired man's head, once more facing himself with the sneer faced Russian in his mid-forties with those cold pale blue eyes.  
“So.”, Clint drawled and smirked, sitting down cross-legged on the ground while Bucky knelt down next to him, plates in the metal shifting and making it really hard for Clint to focus for a moment. But their no longer blinded prisoner showed the right amount of fear, and only that was important.

“Still remember me?”, Clint drew his attention back to the conversation at hand, “And hey, you don't even have to talk, buddy, because I know you do. Kinda difficult to forget the guy who looked you in the eyes and then stabbed your leg.”, Bucky chuckled as a response and poked the bandaged shin, “But, and here comes the real fun fact, you've known me for far longer. Known my name, just not my face because our friends at Interpol are not always the smartest cookies. So here, look at me now, Aljoscha. Look at me and look at the man who gave your sister the freedom she deserved, who gave her a life and a family. The man who will take all of that away from you if you don't talk once we're asking the real important questions.”, the jet dropped and Clint started smirking for good upon the small shiver of fear he could see spiking in those blue eyes.

“There, five minute warning. Make up your mind, pal. You can have it the easy way or the hard way, but both will hurt.”, and then Clint reached for the black bag again that Bucky was already holding out and together they blinded Aljenka again.

\--

The Quinjet touched down on the ground and only Tony's hand latching onto Steve's wrist kept him from rushing forward. Patience, quiet, easy, let him come to you, don't overwhelm him, Steve let Natasha's words repeat over and over again in his head, but it was difficult, so close, so close.  
The ramp went down and Wanda was the first one out, smiling at them even though she looked tired and more or less welcomed the hug Vision offered her, melting against him.

But Steve's attention was completely drawn away from her when the sound of heavy boots sounded on the ramp and almost everyone tensed as blue eyes flickered over their group.  
He hesitated for a moment at the end of the ramp, clearly waiting for something to happen, but when no one moved, he continued his path, only stopping again when he was standing right in front of Steve. One pair of blue eyes staring into paler ones. Until at least he pulled his lips into that one sided smirk, "Sorry for making you wait, punk."  
Steve didn't care whether or not Tony finally let go, biting back those pathetic sounds in his throat, he swept his arms up and pulled his oldest friend into the strongest embrace he was capable off.

Bucky was home.

While everyone was busy staring and pretending not to stare as Bucky smiled and wrapped both arms around Steve as well to hug back, Tony shuffling a little away from them, no one really saw Clint and Pietro walking from the jet, dragging the once again bagged prisoner between them, manhandling him down the ramp and then to kneel on the ground. Tapping his fingers against his thigh, Clint waited patiently until Steve and Bucky broke apart again, only then did he clear his throat, making everyone swivel around to look at him.  
"Barnes comes with a housewarming present.", he declared, searching Natasha's eyes in their little crowd, showing her the deep rooted satisfaction he was still feeling, the thrill of vengeance still so hot in his veins.

"Uhhh.", Tony cooed and came closer, "Who is it, who is it?", he demanded and then stopped when Clint held up a hand, not taking his eyes from Natasha as he used the other one to reach for the bag  
He pulled it off in one fluent movement and then grinned darkly as Natasha gasped, "Everyone, meet Hydra's moneymaker...Aljoscha Aljenka."

“Aljenka? Commander Viktora's brother?”, Tony wanted to know and stopped right next to Clint, eyes narrowed in anger.  
“The younger of the two. Full of secrets and answers. He'll help us find the girls and get to Rumlow. And when we're done with him, I have it on good authority that the Mossad wants a word as well. Tamir will be thrilled.”, Clint chuckled darkly and exchanged another look with Natasha.

\--

Steve walked over to where Tony was whispering quickly back and forth with Clint, Aljenka once more blindfolded on his knees in front of them again. Sam and Rhodey greeted Pietro and pulled him over to Vision and Wanda, mostly because Sam saw the quick look Bucky threw over to a still stunned Natasha.  
"Does it get accepted as an apology gift?", he asked quietly, taking the last three steps over to where green eyes were still staring at the kneeling prisoner.

"It's certainly better than flowers.", she deadpanned and then slowly turned to face him, looking up, even after all these years that hadn't changed, blue eyes looked down on her, the same gentle smile on his face, and Natasha breathed out, "Yasha.", and he smiled a little more secure, bringing up a hand to cup her face.  
"Hello, Natalia.", and in a move that surprised even herself, definitely surprised herself, Natasha threw her arms around Bucky's neck and held onto him, “My little Natashenka.”

\--

“You know I get why Steve is here, all muscle power in case Tony triggers something, but why did you want me here? I can do shit if you go all Winter God on us.”, Clint said on the next day after Steve and Tony had called him down to the latter's workshop, apparently agenda number one after hugging Steve and Natasha and getting a good nights sleep in a good bed, was getting the arm at least checked out if not directly fixed by Stark.

Clint couldn't blame Bucky, it was part of who he was now.

What he seriously didn't understand why he was needed for it as well, not Natasha who knew the Winter Soldier's fight techniques even better.

“That's exactly the reason why I want you here.”, Bucky snapped back at him and Clint couldn't even get irritated over it, even though Steve was starting to frown, Bucky deserved to be a little worn thin and nervous. Still, he was staring dumbly at those gray colored eyes in the artificial light of Tony's sacred walls, as they stood maybe five food apart, Tony still collection tools on the other side of the table and Steve more or less awkwardly hovering beside them.

“Can't you see it, Clint?”, Bucky continued raking his flesh fingers through his hair, letting it stick up even wilder, “Over twenty fucking years, and the Soldier didn't even think about harming you once.”, which okay, Barnes did have a point, damn good point, Clint did have a few questions about that as well still.  
“I was never the mission.”, he nevertheless went on the defense and used the one Natasha had always told him through the years whenever they had talked about it.

“You were a witness, the worst of them all, you kept on coming back.”, Bucky spoke in exasperation and Tony and Steve both snorted in the least surprised sound they could produce, “And still the Soldier didn't hurt you. That's why I want you here. To keep the Soldier distracted long enough to get Stark into a suit to help Steve bring me down.”, and Clint was left gaping at the flat pokerface on Bucky's face.

“Okay, how about we all get comfortable, sit down and talk about what's going to happen before we jump to the worst case scenario.”, Steve stepped in between Clint's and Bucky's line of sight, pointing one hand towards Tony and the other one towards the couch in the corner.  
“I agree with Steve's plan.”, Tony declared cheerfully and patted the free space on the table he was standing next to, screwdriver and flashlight in his hands, Bucky grunted but complied, hopping up on the table and pulling off his shirt.

\--

Of course Tony didn't trigger any sensitive programming of Hydra's Asset, instead he triggered something much more fun with his constant questions after Bucky's well-being while he sorted through wires, contacts and tiny computer chips at the metal arm's elbow and shoulder.

He triggered an annoyed WWII soldier and Depression raised boy who very much hated to be in the spotlight.

Clint and Steve watched from the couch in the corner of the workshop, playing fetch with Dummy and shifting between bored and completely entertained after the last tension had left the room half an hour into Tony's work.  
“You feel this?”, Tony asked once more, stopping with the screwdriver and Clint could see Steve biting his lips to keep from grinning as bright as the sun itself when Bucky looked up and sent him a look that spoke volumes over what he wanted to say in answer to that.

“Stark, I swear I'm gonna strangle you with my good hand if you don't stop fussing.”, he growled out a reply and sent a glare to the engineer who deadpanned right back at him, Clint chuckled and threw the ball towards Butterfingers, right over Dummy's head, who huffed and rolled closer to pinch his foot. Tony huffed and threw a look over to Steve as well, who couldn't hold back on the grin anymore and Clint wondered just many dreams were coming true for him.

“Stevio, I swear...how can someone be this insufferable?”, Tony grumbled and Bucky snorted, while Steve snickered.  
“Pot. Kettle. Black, Stark.”, Clint pointed out and grinned at both Bucky and him, Bucky grinned right back while Tony growled and went back to work, this time forgoing asking and just opening another plate without a single comment.

“Pot. Kettle. Black, Barton.”, Steve followed it up easily and Clint snuffed air through his nose and patted Dummy's claw, ignoring Steve and the other two, at least until Bucky chuckled.  
“Pot. Kettle. Black, Rogers.”, he shot at Steve who stuck his tongue out and crossed his arms over his chest, looking like a petulant little child as Clint and Tony glanced between him and a grinning Bucky for a moment.

“I can recall several incidents from the war alone where I literally had to sit on you to allow someone to take a look at your injuries, and let's not talk about before.”, Bucky recalled and Steve glowered at him through the still obvious happiness over every bit Bucky shared with him.  
“As if you were any better.”, the blond shot back and Tony only looked up long enough to catch Clint's gaze and roll his eyes, Clint himself rearranged his legs on Steve's thigh and grinned, amusing himself greatly.

“Excuse me?”, Bucky bristled playfully and Tony groaned when he moved, slapping a hand against Bucky's thigh, “I let myself be treated without throwing my dignity into the wind, just because I don't let myself be coddled, doesn't mean I'm fussy over someone taking care of me.”  
“Monty petted your hair and you flung yourself away from him as if he was the devil himself. And all that nurse tried to give you was a hug, you were shot, she felt sorry for you.”, Steve shot back easily and Clint desperately wanted popcorn.

“Monty came at me after petting the damn pigs on that farm. And that nurse smelled like horse shit.”, Bucky grumbled and Tony's and Clint's mumbled 'Language' went unnoticed, “And like I said, you never gave us an easy time either. Remember Leipzig?”, Steve scoffed in response and Clint pulled his legs back and knelt on the couch, curious eyes shifting between both super soldiers.  
“What happened in Leipzig?”, he wanted to know and Tony stopped his work as well.

Steve obviously went to distract, if the look in his eyes showed anything, but Bucky was quicker, smirking evilly and turning his head to Clint for Tony was too close to make it comfortable.  
“Old lady, hardcore Nazi and Hydra secretary or something, stabbed him with a candlestick, it got stuck and by the time we were done and regrouping he had already started healing around it. And then he turned into a whiny baby when it was his turn for treatment, Carter and I had to sit on him while Dernier played nurse, half the block watched.”

“Pictures?”, Tony asked hopefully but Bucky shook his head with a shit-eating grin as Steve growled and flipped him the finger, “Pity, flex your fingers.”, and on it went, and as Clint left behind Bucky and Steve hours later, metal arm fixed for the time being, his sides were aching from too much laughter, but he still couldn't shake off the grin.

\--

In the following days, Bucky slept a lot, and when he was awake, Clint often saw Steve and him sitting in a quiet corner somewhere, talking for hours. Or he was watching Natasha work out in the gym, talking with her in quiet Russian and bringing smiles out in her that even Clint had never seen.

\--

“Rogers!”, everyone looked up when Tony came storming into the living room with the most tragic pout on his lips, Bucky trailing along after him with a thick grin on his face, they had spent almost the entire day together, talking and laughing and creating god knows what down in the labs, “Five days! He's been here five fucking days!”, Tony continued once he had caught sight of Steve and was sure of his attention, “Five freaking days. I repair his arm and the only thing he can think of is asking me why I failed in creating flying cars! Is that the kind of gratefulness for hospitality that you taught him!”

“Woah, don't blame me for this. I didn't drag the cat home.”, Steve protested and pointed a finger towards Clint as Bucky really started laughing and Tony puffed out his chest.  
“Hey, don't look for support here. I'm still mad he didn't shoot Kennedy.”, upon Clint's words, everyone in the room turned silent and turned to look at him.  
“Only you. Only you, Barton.”, Sam deadpanned and waved Bucky over, who shoved at Clint's shoulder as he passed by, and Clint dropped against Natasha.

“Hey, Coulson has a flying car.”, Sammy piped up from her place next to Steve by the pool table, where they had been watching Rhodey, Sam and Pietro play. Tony made a wounded animal kind of sound and sulked over to the armchair closest to the TV, scowling at his hands until Wanda took pity and shoved her coffee mug into them.

It was surreal, Clint thought and grinned up at Natasha where he was still lying with his head in her lap since Bucky had none too gently delivered him there, and she rolled her eyes and turned back to Vision and whatever book they were discussing with Bruce. Family a little bigger again, and only a couple of days in and it felt like Bucky had been there since forever.

Sitting up again, he looked around, not with the giddy half high eyes of a proud ex-teenager but with the clear gaze of Hawkeye, took it all in. How Maria joined the group by the pool table, balancing the drinks she had made Sammy and herself past Sam and Pietro shoving at each other as Rhodey took his turn. Sammy smiled and took the fuzzy pink drink, twisting away when Steve leaned over to sniff at it. How Bucky smiled at their antics and leaned back against the wall, at least until Pietro called for sharp eyes and help to make a point to Sam.

And Clint didn't know who looked happier when Bucky was automatically pulled into the light roughhousing, ending up with Sam's arm around his shoulders and Pietro scowling at them like a betrayed five-year old. Steve was glowing, both arms around Sammy from behind as his love talked to Maria, but he was watching his returned friend with eyes that still couldn't believe how lucky he truly was. And Bucky was...home, grinning and smirking, relaxed.

Just as relaxed as everyone else. 

Wanda cursed at the DS in her hands and then looked up when Tony's hand appeared in her vision, crooking a finger and making a come here gesture. She shifted even closer where she had already been sitting cross-legged on the ground, but Tony rolled his eyes and impatiently patted the armrest on his right, Wanda hesitated only for a split second before sitting down right where he obviously wanted her, pushing the DS into his hand with a huff of breath.

Clint felt something incredibly warm flood his veins as he watched them in the next minutes, how Tony played two rounds and showed her every single small finger twitch, how Wanda watched with furrowed brows, cataloging every movement, how she then took her DS back and tried it herself again, with Tony watching and giving pointers. And when she whooped over her first win, Tony grinned almost more than her.

Natasha's and Bruce's book discussion had turned into an argument over some character development and both of them had gotten up to find the book in the bookshelf across the room. Vision had obviously opted out of continuing with them and instead joined Wanda and Tony as they set up a Mario Kart round on the Wii U, Clint declined when he was asked as well, he was too content observing at the moment.

Clint knew what the sensation spreading through his heart was the second he felt its power, hope, it was hope that soon the picture here would be complete, that he would be able to watch the girls find their places among their blissful big patchwork family. It was going to work out. It was going to be okay.

\--

tbc


	22. Interlude: Three Men and a Baseball Game

“How did this happen?”, Tony asked with not a small amount of confusion in his voice, “All I wanted was watch a game, seriously, just good old boring baseball.”, he grouched and snarled in the end, gun still held high, back to back with Clint and Steve as he was.  
“I told you not to get a coke, I fucking told you.”, Clint cut right back at him, eyes narrowed at the group of mercenaries that had them surrounded in the middle of the stadium, their black jackets all bedazzled with the red Hydra logo.

“Guys, focus.”, Steve warned, finger on the trigger pulling back a little more, “I am way more interested in how we are going to get out of this now.”, their Captain demanded to know but Tony and Clint could only shrug their shoulders. Not much to go on. No shield, no suit, no bow. Only four guns, a knife and a pen.

On the other hand...

“You have my back, right?”, Clint asked quietly, blue eyes narrowing on the six footer standing right across from him, Tony and Steve both grumbled, “Perfect, don't get in my way.”

\--

One hour earlier

\--

“Doesn't that make Bruce Mum?”, Clint asked and leaned back in his seat to catch Tony's face behind Steve's broad shoulders while the blond steadily kept on ignoring them, eyes fixed on the game down on the field. Tony thought for a moment before cocking his head to the side.  
“But Thor, man. Without the lightning, it would have never worked.”, he pointed out, both of them reaching out to take more fries from the box on Steve's lap.

“Nah, dude, Thor is the midwife, he helped breathe life into V, he didn't create him.”, Clint argued once he had swallowed and then cheered along with Steve as whoever was their favored team scored. Steve certainly was enjoying himself, and Clint was just happy to be off base for one day, if he wasn't around to see it, the paperwork didn't exist, and so he had gladly accepted Tony's offer to spent a day in New York.

Yankee Stadium was their third stop, and even though Clint and Tony didn't really have it that big for baseball, Steve was all fired up and it felt good to see him so free and young, raised their spirits as well. Everything was looking up, Bucky was getting along perfectly with everyone, especially with Sammy and that had Steve in an endless cloud number nine.  
“Ultron helped as well. Is he an incest bastard now?”, Tony grumbled and Clint groaned, this time leaning forward to glare at the genius across Steve's chest.  
“Now, you had to go and make it weird.”, he complained, rolling his eyes when Tony stuck out his tongue. 

“You both went and made it weird by starting this fucking conversation in the first place.”, Steve growled and sent them both an annoyed look that was just begging to be called out on his language, but Tony and Clint both simply grinned and kept quiet. They were as incognito as they could ever be, especially with known faces like Steve and Tony had, but baseball caps, simple casual clothes and seats in the middle of the baseball crazy New Yorker crowd and even Captain America could vanish.

And as part of their cover, they had left everything behind that could have drawn attention to them, which of course included all kind of weapons, except for one small pocket knife in Clint's left sneaker. There was being casual and there was being stupid in Clint's opinion. Natasha had confiscated their phones in the morning, together with Tony's watch and tablets, so it was just them, just three normal friends watching a baseball game.

Enjoying a beautiful normal day.

Like normal people.

Only...it just wasn't meant to be.

\--

One moment everything was just fine and Clint had tried to follow the game with Steve's help and constant comments, jeez, the guy could go on about the coach for hours, while Tony was gone to get himself another coke, because apparently public places needed at least triple the amount of lethal caffeine dose.

So there he was, nodding along to Steve's rant as the two men in their sixties sitting in front of them got mixed into it as well, and Clint just really enjoyed seeing Steve so carefree and loose for a change. Bucky and him had worked miracles on each other, and it had only been a week.

In the next second, the pitcher threw the ball and the crowd went screaming...just not because of him. 

Clint was on his feet immediately, knife pulled from his shoe and untwisted in his hand, the other one reaching for Steve and pushing him towards the men, sending them crashing into the seats and out of the way of the bullet that came their way from the man four rows below, wearing a black jacket that Clint just knew had a red stitching somewhere. As he yelled for the people around them to run, he had the fleeting thought over who was getting paid for all that needlework, must have been exhausting after Shield fell.

Aiming and letting the knife fly within one breath, he hit the Hydra goon right in the main artery on his neck, as he was already catapulting himself off the seat and onto him. Clint brought the unknown man crashing to the ground, wrenching his knife out of his neck and into the thigh of his seat neighbor who was in the process of pulling his own gun.   
“Not today.”, Clint snarled, caught the falling gun and put the man out of his misery as the panic really unfolded around them.

Jumping back to his feet with a gun in his hands and the rifle at his feet, Clint frantically looked around for Steve, finding him helping a young boy back to his feet where the kid had obviously fallen in the panicked flight of the crowd.  
“Help them get the people out!”, he screamed over and Steve opened his mouth to protest, as expected, “I got this. I can fight, they can't. Help security Steve, I'll find Tony.”, Steve nodded reluctantly and then hefted the kid upon his hip and rushed towards where the stadium security was trying to get in.

Clint slung the rifle over his shoulder and then grabbed the comm that was peaking out of the first attacker's ear, “Listen up, fellows, you just ruined my one free day. It's on.”, he growled into the line and then crushed it between his shoe and the ground. Whirling around in the next blink of an eye, he took out the next black clad bastard aiming for Steve's head while the blond was helping people out of their rows.

\--

Twenty minutes later, it was pure chaos, but Clint had never felt as much back in a zone he knew and ruled than he had in almost ten years. Leaving dead Hydra bodies behind like rats, he had already emptied three magazines and broken three borrowed guns, the rifle had gone to barricade the guy with the grenade launcher into the supply closet down in the tunnels.

Even down here, he was still able to hear the screaming people as security struggled to get a grip on them, police sirens were blaring in the background already and sometimes there seemed to be a helicopter over the stadium. Clint though breathed calmly, picked up another gun from the man he had choked with a well placed elbow and slowly edged towards the corridor that would lead out onto the field.

A shadow moved in the light and Clint pulled back the trigger, but then identified the Led Zeppelin shirt and lowered the gun again.  
“What the hell is happening?”, Tony demanded to know, brandishing his own retrieved gun and a cut lip, a bruise forming on his cheekbone that Clint carefully poked against despite the hiss from Tony, nothing broken, good, “One second I pay for my coke and in the next the guy punches me straight in the face. Seriously? Hydra selling hot-dogs now?”

Clint rolled his eyes and then whirled around at the same time as Tony, back to back shooting the guys having tried to sneak up on them.  
“Phone?”, Clint asked as they jogged out of the tunnels again, pushing some frightened players into them before closing the doors, it was obvious that Hydra was here for them, letting panicked human people do the rest for casualties, but the bullets were meant for Avengers only.

Wasn't that just nice.

“I tried, twice already, there must be some kind of jammer, can't get any connection.”, Tony explained and ducked behind a wall while Clint rammed his gun into the Hydra soldier mid-jump down from the rows above them. Exchanging gun and grabbing some new ammunition, he reached down to grab Tony's arm and pulled him over to the home team bench.  
“Well, seems we're on our own then until Jarvis gets wind of the news.”, Clint said and tried to get an overview.

“Don't think Barnes will watch the game? Just because we're here? He is paranoid enough for that.”, Tony offered and twisted out of the way, so Clint could shoot the woman with the Hydra logo on her chest point blank.  
“He also hates the Yankees with a passion that kinda scares me a little, so I wouldn't bet on it. Sam and Natasha will also make damn sure he does not get involved in this. Do you see Cap?”, Clint turned away from the topic because the last thing he wanted to think about in this moment was Bucky and the possibility that he and his insane protective instinct would bring him in danger of revealing his being alive status to Hydra.

“There.”, Tony exclaimed and pointed over to the other side of the field where Steve was vaulting over the wall to get down on the grass, while above them a black helicopter turned in circles and Clint did not like the sight of that at all.  
“Get him down. I'll give you cover.”, Clint announced and fired at the chopper until his magazine was empty and Tony pulled Steve into the guest's teams corner, “Alright, let's see.”, he mused, bending down to grab another comm, this time the one having fallen out of the dead female agent's ear, “Let's stop the games, why don't we? You want us, Rumlow? Come and get us yourself.”, he snarled and then loaded up his gun with the one stack of ammunition from the agent's belt, set the barrel onto the comm and pulled the trigger.

Two rows above the stall, where Tony and Steve were yelling at each other, fingers poking each other's injuries and jesus, for someone with super serum Steve could seriously bleed a lot from cuts and gashes, a Hydra agent in civies started screaming, wrenching out the comm link and standing straight just long enough for Clint to put a bullet right between his eyes.

Trusting Tony to have his back, he grabbed the female agent's gun from next to his right foot and then dashed over to them.  
“You okay?”, he asked, eyes flying over Steve's bleeding face as they crouched low, Steve gave a nod and pushed Tony's hand away from his shoulder, taking the gun Clint offered him.

“Bucky is going to kill me, and Sammy will just stand there and cheer him on.”, Steve gave instead of a more useful answer and Clint already tried to guess how many bullet holes it would be this time, judging by the deepening frown on Tony's face it was not zero.  
“You're worried about them? Man, Lila spent three days on that shirt, she finger-painted for hours, she is going to take you apart. Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of cotton without ruining the design?”, Clint complained and thumbed at the blood having seeped into the self-designed “Best Uncle” hoodie.

And for a second Steve looked so crushed that Clint's rage towards Hydra ruining the day doubled still.

“We have two choices now.”, Clint started talking again, reloading the two guns he carried and hooking the knife into his belt, “What do you have?”, he asked and looked over to Tony and Steve who both held up a gun with a full magazine and a pen... well, okay, Clint had had worse to work with, “Alright, two choices. We split up, Steve and I distract them while Tony sneaks out to call back-up.”, but he saw immediately at the words split up that Tony and Steve would never agree, “Or we fight. Take them down before they can call back-up.”, Tony started grinning in response immediately, Steve looked out towards the chopper.

“We need to take that down first, then we fight.”, he agreed and blinked when Clint held out a baseball to him, keeping two for himself.  
“Shot out the windows.”, the archer quipped, “Show me how hard you can throw, Stevie. Make the Yankees proud.”, he smirked and Steve snorted, “And don't tell Bucky it was my idea.”, and that earned him a short laugh from the blond as Steve straightened up a little more and then took aim.

A few seconds later the ball went flying and just as Clint had hoped it took out the pilot, sending the chopper crashing down into the vacated ranks on the western side of the stadium, two Hydra soldiers able to jump to safety onto the field.  
“Let the games begin.”, Clint announced and threw himself back out of the stands, swinging his arm around to pitch one ball into the face of a approaching Hydra agent and sending the other one flying into the balls of another agent.

\--

Five minutes later they found themselves surrounded as Clint's mental plan had miscalculated a little just how many agents had hidden themselves in the stadium. 

“How did this happen?”, Tony asked with not a small amount of confusion in his voice, “All I wanted was watch a game, seriously, just good old boring baseball.”, he grouched and snarled in the end, gun still held high, back to back with Clint and Steve as he was.  
“I told you not to get a coke, I fucking told you.”, Clint cut right back at him, eyes narrowed at the group of mercenaries that had them surrounded in the middle of the stadium, their black jackets all bedazzled with the red Hydra logo.

“Guys, focus.”, Steve warned, finger on the trigger pulling back a little more, “I am way more interested in how we are going to get out of this now.”, their Captain demanded to know but Tony and Clint could only shrug their shoulders. Not much to go on. No shield, no suit, no bow. Only four guns, a knife and a pen.

On the other hand...

“You have my back, right?”, Clint asked quietly, blue eyes narrowing on the six footer standing right across from him, Tony and Steve both grumbled, “Perfect, don't get in my way.”

He didn't give either of them much room to argue, wrenching the pen out of Tony's pockets, he somersaulted right at the tallest agent, kicked the rifle out of his hands and stabbed the pen into his eye, ducking down low in the next second to avoid the bullets coming his way.

And then something gave away in his head, and the clean and trained former Shield agent vanished entirely, replaced by the violent kid he had left behind on a deserted street corner all these years ago. Things got messy.

And Hawkeye fought.

Jumped and twisted, twirled and ducked. Put bullets in heads, knees and chests. Slashed and stabbed, blood came flowing but certainly not his. No one touched him, no one reached him. He didn't fight to bring them down, he fought to destroy them.

For Bucky and the screams in the night.

For the girls and the guilt he would never be able to shake. For Sarah, Julie and Tess.

\--

And then suddenly, it was quiet.

And the only ones left standing were Steve, Tony and him. Guns empty, knife broken.

“Never ever let me make a joke about you again. This was actually the scariest shit I've ever seen.”, Tony breathed while Steve could only gape at Clint who slowly raised himself out of his crouched position and grinned, head swirling with something he hadn't felt in a very very long time.

Pride.

Pride about who he was.

\--

Natasha's glare was cold enough that Clint found himself shivering deep to his core as she stalked down the ramp of the Quinjet towards where the medics were doing their best to patch them up. Tony and Steve were arguing as always, both fussy and cranky, and Clint had to repeatedly force down the urge to slap them over the head.

“National Television.”, were Natasha's first words, “Didn't know you dreamed of your own Reality TV Show.”, she snarked and slapped the paramedic away to check Clint's face over for herself. Clint scowled at her and looked over her shoulder where Sam and Rhodey were the only ones coming out of the jet after her, both of them glaring at their friends who still hadn't seen them.  
“Where are the others? And in my defense, it was them who started it all.”, he pointed out and then got to his feet, thanking the paramedics again for their help. The area outside the stadium was still pure chaos, injured people being treated, shocked people being comforted, Clint doubted Steve was going to leave this place anytime soon.

So much for a beautiful day off base.

“Pietro is running a perimeter check. Wanda is calming Laura down, Sammy is on the phone with Pepper. Maria is organising a clean up. Bruce opted to stay out of your stupidity and told Vision to stay behind as well.”, Natasha gloated and Clint glared at her for a short moment, until his mind caught up with the missing name. Taking a deep breath, he pinched the bridge of his nose, “Don't tell me that...”

“I'm impressed.”, a quiet voice spoke directly behind him in the next second and Clint did not jump, he totally did not whirl around with a loud gasp to stare right into grinning blue eyes. Growling in the next second, he grabbed the sleeve covered arm and whisked the man with the hood pulled deep into his face off into the shadows of the Quinjet.  
“What do you think you are doing? Have you lost your goddamn mind? Don't you think they are still watching us? We all agreed not to blow your cover!”, he hissed into Bucky's face, poking a finger hard into his chest and then snapped up his head and looked around until he found Natasha smiling at him in pure amusement.

“Reporters, now. Sort through their pictures, get Jarvis on it as well. And tell Piet to find my pocket knife.”, he ordered and Natasha stepped away with an eye roll, “Back to you, you insufferable idiot. And before you say a single word in what you think is a justified defense, there was never a second aside from maybe that very first one where I didn't have things under freaking control.”, he regretted that he had to raise himself up a little on his toes, fucking super-soldiers.

Bucky, right eyebrow raised, listened with half a smirk on his face as Clint continued, “There was never any danger for me or Tony, and we both know that keeping Steve out of trouble is impossible even if you glue yourself to his back. Nothing happened to us, bruises and cuts will heal, none of this was worth jeopardizing your status of being fucking dead to Hydra. Do you even hear me in that thick skull of yours?”, Clint knew he was flustered like a bird in full out threat posture but Bucky looked like he wanted to coo at him.

“Yes, Sir. Hearing you quite perfectly, don't agree, but I hear.”, and Clint made a high pitched noise and went to start it all over again, but a glove covered metal hand was pushed over his mouth and everything in his brain turned to mush, “I didn't come back to sit back and watch while you guys have a go at Hydra, Clint. I came back to fight with you. And anyway, I'm here because someone needed to tell you how epic that was before you go and play it all down again.”, yup, total blank, what had he been angry about, Clint wondered and grinned against metal fingers.

“It had been good, huh?”, he mumbled and Bucky took his hand down again, “I feel twenty again, really young, totally strung tight on adrenaline, I could climb walls right now. This is gonna be a bitch tomorrow, but damn that was fun.”, he agreed and Bucky chuckled, “By the way, you want to come with me? There is a guy with a grenade launcher that I kept alive, has to be the only one who can still talk, wanna ask some questions?”, Bucky's face lightened up like a christmas tree, and Clint knew they were cool again.

“You two are exhausting.”, a voice commented from their right and both of them turned in perfect terrifying creepy sync to glare at a roughed up, still bloody Steve.  
“Rogers.”, they both snarled and the thick grin slipped off of Steve's face in record time as he blanched upon the deeply annoyed and frustrated look on both of their faces, “You better run.”

\--

There wasn't a picture in the papers the next day, mostly because Natasha had deleted everything including the mysterious hooded figure working alongside the Avengers. The reports of the incident, a glorious dramatic retelling of Hawkeye saving the day with a little help of Cap and Iron Man, had a little footnote though.

A squeaking Captain America running away from Hawkeye and the masked stranger.

Maybe it had been worth the trouble after all.

\--

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go and then epilogue and a little something and this first part of the series is done.   
> Visit me on tumblr under strike-team-alpha.tumblr.com


	23. A Hawk's Secret and a Soldier's Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicating this entire chapter to Sammy who helped me write a scene for this

Chapter 8 

Aljenka refused to talk, even after Bucky and Clint had tried their luck together, he remained stubbornly silent, but they got a breakthrough in another way. A few days after bringing Aljenka to the US, their analysts tracked down a trail of money that Aljoscha had paid into a bank account that was reeking with Hydra ties, arranged on a cover name that Rollins had used years ago on an op in Argentina. Zachary and Sammy followed the money into Canada, where rumors had it that it was used to fund the continued construction of a secret base in the north of the country.

A secret base in the deserted Canadian North where it would be easy to hide hostages. The Avengers grabbed on and were slammed face first into a wall of stones and governmental blockades. The message was clear, no fundamental proof, no mission on Canadian soil. So much for allies..

“Je vous remercie pour votre importante collaboration, espèce de cochon arrogant.”, Clint snapped into the phone in his hand and then roughly swiped over the display as he stomped into the room, Steve and Natasha winced, the only ones in Steve's office who spoke French next to Clint.  
“Please tell me that wasn't spoken to Trudeau.”, Tony begged, even without knowing the actual words, the tone of Clint's voice had promised nothing good or nice. Clint growled in reply, shoved the phone into Tony's hands and strode over to the hologram over Steve's desk, playing around until he grabbed the small picture found on their network and slammed it up great.

He walked over to Bucky while everyone else was staring at him, grabbing the brunet's shoulders he pulled him off the wall and dragged him in front of the hologram.  
“Meet Justin Trudeau, Canada's premier minister, look at him and tell me what I already know.”, Clint spoke again and gestured to the picture as Bucky still blinked at him, but then he slowly turned to look. Steve and Tony dared a look to Natasha who in turn was watching Clint with furrowed brows.

“Oh.”, Bucky said after a moment and grimaced, “Hail Hydra, Canada.”, and Clint made a twirl in response while Steve gaped and Natasha and Tony turned to glare at the highest figure in the Canadian government. Full explanation for the stone-walling right there in front of them.  
“Well, isn't that just perfect.”, Steve gritted out between his teeth and swiped a stack of papers off his desk in his frustration, “We'll never get an Avenger into Canada now without solid proof without causing a political disaster.”

“I'm not an Avenger.”, Bucky's voice broke through the silence that followed Steve's outburst, blue eyes switching from person to person in the room, “Technically, I'm not even alive. Ghosts can cross borders without being caught, and I'm the best of the best.”

\--

“Are you sure that you wanna do this?”, Steve asked quietly and Tony briefly looked up from where he was fiddling around with the rifle, “You've only been back three weeks, and you slept more than half of it.”, sitting cross-legged on the workbench, Bucky sent one short glance over to where Tony was still working on his rifle.  
“Steve, I'll come back.”, Bucky promised, looking over to where Steve had been pacing in front of the milky glass doors, “But this is something I have to do. For you, for Stark, for Natalia and for me. And for Clint most of all.”, Bucky stressed in the end and Steve huffed, making another sharp turn, Dummy beeped in worry and Tony reached out to pat him soothingly.

“He doesn't hold you responsible for what happened. He knows better than anyone else what it means to have your choices stripped away.”, Steve argued and Bucky pushed himself off the table, striding over to Steve and finally making him stop.  
“And when will that message reach your thick head?”, Bucky challenged and Steve's face switched from concerned right into guilty upset, “Figured.”, Bucky mumbled under his breath, “Listen, Stevie. I had a hand in their kidnapping. Rumlow has Seaway and St.Oaks because I helped, and he has Viktora because I gave her to him. It wasn't my choice and it was the Soldier that followed orders, but if I can do something now to make it right, then I will.”, Bucky made clear, setting his food down quite literally when Steve tried to start pacing again, instead he squeaked over stepped on toes.

“He brought me home, Steve. He gave me the choice to run as long as I needed to and then came when I called for him. If there is anything I can do to give even the smallest thing back to him now then I will give my best to do so.”, Bucky said and at the workbench, Tony wrenched his head up, thick grin on his face and his lips opening to speak. Steve was quicker though, not taking his eyes off of Bucky, he snapped a hand up and pointed it to the genius leering at a confused Bucky.  
“Don't even. I am warning you.”, the blond super soldier grumbled and Tony pouted, Bucky looked between them and then scowled.

“Oh, get your head out of the gutter, Stark.”, he rolled his eyes, finally took his food off of Steve's and walked over to the couch, “Do you know what he said to me in Moscow?”, he asked and sat down, Steve glared at Tony until the dark haired man visibly changed the intensity of his grin.  
“That Pizza is an accepted meal at any time of the day? Never to drink beer warm in any other month than August? Five tips on how to survive farm life?”, Tony guessed and Bucky stared at him for a moment before shaking his head, choosing to ignore it all.

“He told me that people will always see you however they want, that we shouldn't define ourselves by what other people think about us. It's important what we see, important what we feel. Be your own hero. And I want that. I was a killer and a murder puppet on a string for seventy years, for even longer.”, he added at the end of his sentence with a short glance over to Steve, “The only thing I did since leaving Brooklyn for the war was kill. I know it won't end anytime soon, Hydra is still there and I won't be able to rest until all of them are gone, but now I have a choice, now I can decide not to be the one who has to pull the trigger. I am the Winter Soldier, Steve, I can't just stop being him but I can use these skills for something good, if I find the girls.”

Steve was silent for a long moment, long enough that Dummy rolled over and poked him in the hand, the blond smiled and curled his fingers around the claw, Tony and Bucky both watching him.  
“Don't risk too much. You don't have to do this alone, Buck. Find them, call us, we get them out together, because I can assure you, Clint wouldn't feel any better if he gets the girls back but loses you to Rumlow in the process.”, Steve explained and Bucky nodded.

“Steve is right.”, Clint's voice joined the conversation from right behind Steve, and the taller blond jumped and pulled Dummy around with himself, on the couch Bucky snickered, having seen Clint sneak up a minute ago. Tony rolled his eyes to the heavens and got back to work.  
“Did Aljenka talk?”, Steve wanted to know once he had stopped glaring at Clint, who deadpanned at him and moved to walk over to the couch and sit down next to Bucky.

“Does it look like I am celebrating a victory? No, he didn't talk. He is stubborn, unfortunately that runs deep in that family.”, Clint admitted and dragged a hand over his face.  
“How did you find Aljenka anyway?”, Tony changed the topic slightly, setting the finished rifle down on the table and stepping over to the counter to make some fresh coffee, “As far as I know, there are several countries looking for both brothers, including the Mossad, but good old Mother Russia kept them protected and isolated for years already. Obi certainly never managed to get in contact with them and it wasn't for a lack of trying.”

“Aleksander Lukin.”, Bucky answered, “He was talking when there was nothing left for him anymore, he told me who helped him sell me to Pierce.”  
“Ivan Aljenka.”, Clint took the response from him, hands curling into fists, “He was Sarah's father, and hence the father of Aljoscha and Michail as well. He was an arm's dealer, but had his fingers basically in everything, drugs, human trafficking. Lukin and him had the same mentor, childhood friends you could say. Aljenka was the middle man between the KGB and Hydra until the day I put a bullet in his fucking head. And it looks like Aljoscha at least stepped right into Daddy's footsteps.”, Bucky nodded to Clint's words.

“Lukin had some house addresses the Aljenka's owned in Russia, it was only a matter of time then until I found the right one.”, Bucky took over again and Steve sighed.  
“None of this is getting us any closer to getting something out of him. Clint, don't you think it's time to let Nat...”, but Steve couldn't finish his question before Clint was already shaking his head.  
“Nat will kill him, Steve. The second he finished whatever intel he can give, she is going to snap his neck, and I promised Viktoria Orlas that she can have Aljoscha when we're done with him, and she isn't a woman I like to disappoint. This is hitting too many buttons for here.”

“Can I try?”, Tony had all three of them look over to him in surprise, “You are all focusing on the KGB agent liason thing. Clint is going at this way too personal, which I can understand but I don't think Commander Viktora is the key to breaking Aljenka. He was ready to sell his sister to the highest bettor, why should it bother him now what Rumlow is doing with her.”  
“And what would your approach be?”, Steve wanted to know and tugged himself loose from Dummy who rolled over to Bucky and Clint.

“From one arms dealer to the next. Maybe Aljenka needs someone who can be on the same level of asshole than him.”, Tony proposed and then immediately snapped up a hand to keep Steve's protest at bay, the blond bit his lips and stopped right next to him, “I said can, not am, big difference, Stevio.”

\--

They didn't get anything helpful out of Aljenka before it was time for Bucky to take off. He left in the early morning on the next day, saying goodbye to Steve and Natasha before the sun was over the treetops and way before the majority of the base was awake, but he didn't leave alone. Flying him over the Mexican border and up to Ascención was Clint, after he had promised Natasha and Pietro that he wouldn't do something stupid and return when he had set Bucky off.

“I'm holding you to that promise by the way.”, Bucky picked right on his thoughts as they closed in on the Mexican border, some favors having been pulled to get over undetected, “You're not following me in this.”, he made clear and sat down in the co-pilot's seat again.  
“And there go my dreams.”, Clint chuckled, dared a glance to his right and then snickered when he caught sight of the scowl on Bucky's face.

“I'm serious, Clint. I'm doing this alone, one last time and after that I'm joining your team, slip under Steve's and your command.”, Bucky grumbled, all pointing finger and glaring eyes but Clint had long ago stopped being scared of him, a natural carefulness when a dark mood slipped over Bucky was useful, but fear was not something Clint had ever felt with the Soldier and even less now where Bucky Barnes was revealed to be an even greater man.

“I understand, okay?”, Clint let the goofy facade fall, because he did, he knew how great the risks were, knew that he had a face now that could be easily recognized, the times where Hawkeye was a nobody even as an Avenger were long gone now, “It hurts and it's difficult, but I won't follow you, I promise.”, he repeated the words he had already spoken yesterday. It did hurt, a lot, because Bucky was going out to find his girls, to do the work Clint should be doing to get the girls out from Rumlow's claws. Work he couldn't do because Rumlow would see him coming from miles away.

They had worked together too long, they knew each other too good. And even though Rumlow might know how the Winter Soldier would act, he hadn't the slightest clue on what a person Bucky Barnes was, and they had all agreed to use it to their advantage.

“I'll call the second I find something or someone. And there'll be other times for us to hit the shadows together.”, Bucky drawled and got comfortable for the last minutes of the trip, Clint rolled his eyes and set the autopilot to take over again for a while.  
“I know you...wait what?”, Clint stumbled over his words when Bucky's statement had really caught up with him and he gaped at the brunet man.

“Natashenka talks.”, Bucky smirked and once more Clint was surprised just how cocky and confident he could be, how sometimes all darkness and all remaining hesitation disappeared completely and all you saw was a man who knew what he wanted and how easy it was for him to get it. And Clint had to admit that it surely did something to him and his heart when he noticed that next to Steve, Natasha and surprisingly Wanda, he was one of the people who had the honor to see Bucky Barnes completely without his guards up.

And that after only three weeks.

“She...You haven't even been with us a month and she talks? What the fuck, dude, oh my god.”, Clint exclaimed, jumped to his feet and turned on the spot to walk into the back of the jet, “Let me just jump off the plane right now.”, he whimpered and danced away when Bucky stretched out an arm to get a grab on him.  
“Clint.”, his name was called and he could hear Bucky getting up again, following him into the back of the plane where Clint abruptly turned left.

“Oh my god, where is the closest wall, I need to kill myself.”, he wailed and was all about to ram his head against the wall when a metal hand grabbed his arm and turned him away from it.  
“Clint.”, Bucky called out again, forcing Clint to look at him.  
“I have never in my life felt so embarrassed, and that's saying something cause I've done a lot of stupid shit in my life. One of them was marrying a demonic hell beast. And adopting a teenager in my early twenties.”, the archer exclaimed and Bucky couldn't help but smile, Clint scoffed.

“I think it's cute.”, Bucky curled his lips further into a smirk while Clint flushed from head to toe and ducked away, only getting away because Bucky let him.  
“You're not helping. You're really not helping, you're actually making it worse.”, he grumbled and Bucky threw his head back and laughed. Clint huffed, grabbed the dufflebag and shoved it into Bucky's hands, “Let's go over your cover again before I throw you off this plane for disobeying your superiors.”

“Oh, is that what this is now?”, Bucky challenged him with a grin and set the bag down on a table at the wall upon Clint's dark glare that was visibly less heated than it could have been without the embarrassment written all over his face, “Well then let me try and be better, yastreb.”, and Clint howled, whirled around and tried to kick at Bucky who was laughing even harder than before.

\--

An hour and twenty minutes later, Clint was watching Bucky check into a bus that would drive him straight to the closest airport where the charter flight would bring him to Canada. Hidden behind a parked car, hood pulled into his face and sunglasses on his face, he was observing and judging the people entering the bus alongside Bucky, tried to look for anything suspicious but came up empty.

He found nothing though and the bus drove off without any complications, and Clint was already walking back to make the hike out of the city to where he had left the Quinjet hidden in a valley, when his phone buzzed with a message from Bucky.

'Fly home. Stop worrying about me. I'm not a rookie.'

\--

A few days later things were going to change.

\--

Sammy was walking down the hallway, running her eyes through the data she had just received from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Space and Cosmos Observatory in Chile. There were some irregularities but nothing to be overly worried with, after all Thor still traveled between Earth and Asgard and that left a print on their galaxy. She could hear her steps echoing on the floor and it was making her grin a bit, there was something empowering about hearing your own high heels hit the floor safely.

"It's sickening really,", she heard someone say, a man. He sounded a lot like Tony. "Cap keeps staring at the photos and the look on his face is revolting.", by the voice and the sarcastic, tone it was definitely Tony. She thought for a moment about whether or not to turn left and pay him a visit in his lab, she had some time until her next meeting.  
"Tony, we should really be working.", came Bruce's voice. He sounded tired, not from, surely dealing with Stark on a daily basis had to pull on your energy and she couldn't even try to understand what it was like to live with the Hulk inside one's mind all the time.

"It's this locket thing, looks more like a pocket watch actually.", Tony said and she could almost guess that he was using Jarvis to search for a hologram of said locket as his voice dragged a bit. She had seen this locket too a few times but she had never seen what was inside, a little odd, considering that there were no secrets really between them anymore. The Coulson fiasco had been a harsh lesson for Steve and her. "I bet he has nudes of Sammy in there. You know what-", Tony trailed off and she could just imagine Banner closing his eyes in exasperation. 

Steve had gotten the locket from Natasha a few days before Clint, Pietro and Wanda had flown out to Russia and gotten back with Bucky Barnes in tow. It was a beautiful little thing, and had been meant by her to replace the compass that had broken this past fall, almost destroying the old picture of Peggy Carter with it.

"We are not stealing it.", Bruce sighed and Sammy grinned a little, knowing that kind of sound only too well from Steve and Clint, and lately from Rhodey as well.  
"Fine. I don't need your help anyway." Tony said, sulking, Sammy held back a chuckle and rolled her eyes before resuming her way, even though there were no irregularities she still wanted to report to Maria before going to find Steve for lunch.

\--

Through the rest of the week Sammy kept noticing that Steve did indeed spend a lot of time staring at his locket. He had this soft smile on his lips every time he did and it made Sammy's stomach flutter. It was so nice to know she had someone who loved her so much that he just carried around her picture to look at here and then. She was sure it wasn’t nudes though, she had never sent any to Steve, there had been that time she let him draw her but that was purely scientific - or so she liked to tell herself, at least pretend she had bought the whole “body drawing study” conversation from a very red faced Steve - besides the drawing was way too big to fit in the small locket.

Sammy found herself doing the same a few times, grabbing her phone or whatever just to take a peek at him. She also tried to tell herself it was all because they saw each other less and less as she has been a bit busy, but truth was that they ended up seeing each other at least once a day anyway. Steve usually was up too early for them to take breakfast together, Sammy preferred to orientate herself around Wanda and Natasha when spent the night at Steve's quarters, but lunch and dinner they tried to eat together if their work allowed it.

And at least one evening each week was reserved for date night.

The week after Bucky left for his risky mission in Canada, they were taking Friday for themselves, she wanted him to watch some movies from her childhood that he still didn’t know of but were musts, even Pietro had supported her there after she had showed them to him. Steve had met her at hers and she had everything ready, fast food, a pile of movies ready to go, blankets and pillows all around and her pyjamas on.  
“I am going to change in a minute. Won't be long”, Steve said going to her bathroom to put his own pyjamas on, also known as some random boxer shorts and a large t-shirt.

“Yeah, sure.” Sammy said throwing herself on her couch to wait for him, her eyes glued on the Burger King bag. It wasn’t everyday that she got to eat food like that and when she did she always ended up having to give Tony some or defend her fries with her life against an ex-Russian spy and an enhanced super speedster. Not cool. But today she had it all for herself. At least the one bag that was hers. She saw something from the corner of her eyes as she forced herself to not start on the burgers before Steve was back and glanced at it, Steve’s locket had fallen on the floor. “You dropped something!”, she called out and stood up to go grab it. A muffled reply reached her ears but she didn’t give it much thought, he would return to the living room in a bit anyway.

Sammy ran her fingers through the metal, it was warm from being in Steve’s jeans. Outside it was pretty plain, Natasha must have looked long for something this simple. She clicked it open and smiled fondly at the photo of Peggy Carter, she knew about her and didn’t mind one bit. She understood, they had loved each other and never had a true closure. The photo was old, in black and white shades, the white more yellow at this point than actual white, the picture from the compass. Peggy was a gorgeous woman and the photo showed that, she used lipstick and her hair was in a pretty hair-do from back then.

Her heart dropped as he saw the other photo though. 

It wasn’t Sammy. 

She felt sick.

She had spent the whole week grinning happily to herself as she remembered this locket because Steve had it with him and he stared at it and she… She had never thought it wouldn’t be her inside. It wasn’t even Bucky, she would understand that, even though Bucky would have things to say about it. Or Steve’s mother, she would understand that as well.

It was Tony. Tony Stark.

Tony who had thought himself that it was Sammy.

“I’m ready to start!”, Steve stepped inside the living room with a wide smile, Sammy glanced at him, feeling stunned and empty. How could he? How could he be with her, let her fall in love with him when wasn’t even her he wanted? Sure she had that step back with Pietro, but she had gotten over herself. Besides, she didn’t walk around with his photo, drooling over it! How had he dared look her in the eye and promise her that there wasn't anything with Tony? After all the fights they had, after he had made her swear to stop keeping stuff from him.  
“So when were you going to tell me?”, she asked coldly, throwing the locket back at Steve who caught it easily without even taking his shell shocked eyes off of her face. She was already hoping this was a misunderstanding and that Tony had gotten his hands on it afterall and put in his own photo, but then Steve went paler.

“It’s not what it looks like.” Steve tried to defend himself, but Sammy snorted, shoving the blanket off her legs, everything felt too hot and stiff suddenly.  
“Really? Because it looks like you have been drooling over Tony quite a bit.”, she said bitterly.  
“I am still trying... I… I love you.”, Steve said looking down at his hands, looking down at the goddamn locket with the freaking picture of Tony fucking Stark.  
“Obviously… You don’t like me enough”, she said, frowning a bit. She didn’t sound bitter anymore, she was just hurt at this point. Why couldn’t he have said something? Anything?

“Don’t say that.” Steve stepped closer to her but Sammy turned her face away and extended her arm to keep him away. Steve frowned. “As if I don’t know about Pietro.” he bit out and his whole demeanor changed, bracing himself for a fight.  
“Excuse me?!” Sammy turned to him, getting angry again, feeling her veins catch fire with the low burning feeling of being betrayed, “How dare you! There is nothing between me and Pietro! Nothing! He is my friend.”, she raised her voice, getting touchy as he tried to involve people who were truly innocent in this. 

“But I know how you look at him.”, Steve replied without any less heat in his voice, Sammy’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, so because I am dating you I am blind now? I can’t notice if people around me are attractive? You didn’t seem to have a problem when you went around drawing people while they were butt naked.”, she accused him seethingly.  
“That was purely artistic.” Steve pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest.  
“Yeah… Sure it was.” Sammy rolled her eyes. “That was why we ended up on your bed wasn’t it. Because it was all science and arts.”, she yelled and jumped to her feet.

\--

The night just seemed to get worse and worse, they were throwing everything and anything at each other, most of it they didn’t even mean it. But it was hard, it was hard to look at the person you were with and realize they love another. Sammy wasn’t sure what she felt about Pietro but she knew that it didn’t matter, because if Steve thought she liked him, then it would hurt him anyway. There had been a point in the beginning where she hadn't been sure, right after Pietro had woken up and had browsed into her life like a hurricane with those haunted eyes, but soon enough she had realized that the younger man only saw her as a friend and her feelings had focused only on Steve.

Maybe it would have been better at this point if they would both just shut up and breathe and talk calmly, but Sammy was vomiting words before she could even stop them, and Steve didn’t seem to be doing any better. Two stubborn people pushed to the breaking point, and it seemed it had all been piling up in the last weeks. Their yelling was loud enough that it must have drawn attention all over the damn base already, and Sammy only hoped that Stark didn't think his big blond hero needed support, the last thing she needed now was see his stupid face.

“Are you accusing me of cheating?”, Steve choked on his question, looking like a beaten lost puppy, it broke Sammy’s heart, she could see she was hurting him even more but she couldn’t help the words, she was out of control. She wanted to stop but she couldn’t. Not anymore, not this time, not when he had betrayed her trust so much.

“I don’t know. Did you? After all didn’t you draw Tony as well?”, she asked, jealousy taking over now, she had truly thought to have put it behind her, the constant competing with Tony about Steve's attention, but apparently she not only never stopped fighting but lost epically as well.  
“I would never cheat on you.” Steve lost the last composure and screamed  
“Steve, carrying around a locket - which I may add is one of your most dear possessions that you even take into missions and battles - with the photos of the two people you love and neither is your girlfriend is not exactly not cheating on our relationship! I just… I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me! I would have understood!”, she said exasperated. 

And she would have, if he had come clean to her, if he had been honest and told her that he still loved her but his heart had decided for someone else. Zach had been like that, he had found someone else, but he had been honest, he had talked to her before anyone could have gotten hurt.  
“Right, because you’re reacting so well right now.”, he mumbled, letting his arms fall down.  
“Are you kidding me? You didn’t tell me, I found out by accident. I don’t give a damn if you’re bisexual, if you fell in love with someone else, but I do give a damn that you lied to me after giving me hell for not being honest about Coulson. Which is a whole different level than lying about what your heart wants! You told me you loved me.”, she threw at his head, trying to meet his gaze but he just avoided hers. Steve sighed after a few seconds of silence and finally turned to look at her, letting his arms fall heavy on his sides. “What do we do?”, he wanted to know, looking resigned and Sammy couldn't believe that he wasn't even fighting any longer.

She sighed as well and shrugged, too tired suddenly to still argue about anything, “I guess… I guess I am not the right person for you, Steve. I mean… If I was ever close to being that person to begin with. If this ever meant as much to you as it means to me, it would be me in there.”, she gestured to the locket Steve kept clutching in his hand like a lifeline. He looked down at it. “I think you’re right.”, he said, “I don’t know how to go on, I'm sorry, Sammy, I should have...”, he stopped mid sentence, not even sure how he could continue it.

“Take your time, it’s not like anyone will be pushing.”, Sammy mumbled, hugging herself, trying to melt into the couch. Steve looked at her now. “Can we… Stay friends?”, Sammy nodded, she would find a way, find a way to get over this, like she always did.  
“Yes, of course.”, she agreed but stopped him before he could hug her. “I need space though. A few days, a couple of weeks maybe.”, preferably a mission or two far away from where people were talking about Captain America's perfectness.

“I’ll just get my clothes and leave.”, Steve whispered and Sammy closed her eyes before getting to her feet.  
“Yes, I think you should.”, she whispered right back and watched him go back to her bathroom only to leave a few minutes after that. She winced when the door closed and slowly sank to her knees, looking around. She had been counting on a perfect night to forget the stress and the pressure, but anything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong epically.

She wasn’t even hungry anymore.

The irony was that she now knew she loved Steve with all her heart, but he would never be truly happy with her. That’s why she had to let him go. Let him go so Tony Stark could catch him.

Maybe he would be able to make Steve happy.

She wasn't even alone for two minutes when the door to her quarters slammed open and shut again, and then Zach was kneeling in front of her and taking her into his arms, proving to her that everyone on the corridor must have hurt them.  
“I'm so sorry.”, Zach murmured and Sammy sniffed, turning her face into his neck when the tears stung her eyes, “It's gonna be okay.”

\--

Clint was in his office, stuck in a phone call with Tamir over new developments on the Hydra front when Natasha stormed into his office and slammed the door closed.  
“I...Excuse me, Tamir, but I fear I have to call you back, it looks like something happened that I can't ignore right now. Yes, thanks. Bye.”, setting the phone down, Clint turned his eyes on Natasha.  
“Sammy and Steve had a fight.”, she got right to the point but Clint raised an eyebrow.

“Seriously? I just ended a phone call about actual work because of couple trouble? Natasha, I am trying to get the CIA to take my calls but can't achieve that until the FBI calls me back who won't do a thing until the Pentagon says we're good people. I am busy, I do not have time for...”, but Natasha interrupted his rant without twitching a muscle in her face.  
“Sammy is crying, Pietro and Zachary are on an Anti-Steve warpath. Tony has locked himself in his lab and doesn't let anyone in. Sam can't find Steve, he has completely disappeared.”, she explained and Clint froze, “So, can you please do something?”, she asked all nice and quiet, but it wasn't difficult to see the worry in her eyes.

And if Tony locked himself in his lab because Steve and Sammy were fighting...oh god please no...

“I told them both this would end badly, damn it.”, Clint cursed and muttered and stood up, just as the door to his office flew open again, revealing Sam and Rhodey. Clint shouldered his way past them into the corridor and took control despite rolling his eyes over the drama already, “Alright, first things first, does any of you know what the hell happened?”, he wanted to know and then flinched when Pietro materialized next to him, looking angry, “Do you know what happened?”  
“Don't know how, but Sammy found Tony's picture in Steve's locket.”, Pietro snarled and Clint glared at him for the hostility but then also dragged a hand over his face, Sam, Rhodey and Natasha all sighed.

“Great, that's just wonderful. Jarvis, where is Steve?”, he directed his question at the ever watching AI, but Jarvis remained silent, “Fantastic, privacy protocols. Find him.”, he directed at Sam and then turned to Natasha, “Make sure they don't throw themselves at Radcliff like vultures, take her off base if you think that's better. People will be quick to turn this on her.”, Sam and Natasha both took off again, Clint grabbed Pietro's wrist, “And you will get your head together, boy. Steve doesn't need someone blaming him right now, trust me, he'll be very good at that himself. Find Maria, tell her she is control until I call back in and if Hydra hits, we're going out without Captain America and Iron Man.”

Pietro nodded, looking guilty now, and then rushed off again, so that Clint and Rhodey were left alone in the corridor, “Let's get Tony out of that damn lab.”

\--

A task that turned out to be a little more difficult than first thought, Jarvis completely refused cooperation and steadily recited privacy protocols until Clint threatened to overload his servers. The ventilation shaft had been blocked with something sticky and Clint was still scowling over the goo in his hair when he returned to the closed doors of the lab where Rhodey was still trying to get Tony to answer, the man's patience was worthy an award or two.

Clint though, Clint was done.

And he had made a detour on his way back from the bathroom break, muttering angrily under his breath as he made to prepare himself, “Get back.”, he snapped in warning for Rhodey, already pulling the arrow back on the bow, “Last chance, Stark, open the doors.”, and when no response came he let the arrow fly. Five ticks later, the milky glass wall cracked into a spider web of glass that Clint sent shattering with two well aimed kicks.

The broken wall revealed Tony staring at them where he was sitting between Butterfingers and Dummy below the coffee machine, clutching a gauntlet and a screwdriver in his hands. He looked like a kicked puppy, whose emotions were all over the place.  
“He is yours, get into his thick head, he isn't to blame for any of this. I'm gonna help Sam find Steve. And you will sit right there, Tony and talk with Rhodey!”, Clint called over his shoulder as he already walked away again.

\--

Steve was crushed when Clint found Sam and him hidden deep in the armory, Sam leaning against a table with deeply concerned eyes while Steve sat down on the ground, scrubbing frantically at his boots with a sponge. Eyes reddened and swimming with unshed tears, he barely reacted at all when Clint joined them. He was a mess, the guilt streaming out of every pore, Steve felt guilt in every breath like a burning sword.

The decision on what to do came easy then, because there was no question that Steve couldn't remain on base, not in the state he was in, people would rip him apart, and if any kind of attack came that needed the Avengers, Captain America would only endanger himself while not being able to focus right.

“I'm sending Natasha to pack a bag for you.”, Clint announced himself verbally after a few minutes of silently watching Steve work, “I'll call Laura in a few minutes, the little ones will be good for you. It's gonna be okay, Steve, it just needs some time.”, pained blue eyes looked up at him then and Clint tried a smile, but the heartbroken abyss on Steve's face wiped it off quickly again, but Laura would know how to mend it, Clint was sure of that.

\--

Lila was a good cuddler, despite all that seemingly limitless energy, her little darling angel was the best cuddler in the whole wide world and as Laura returned from getting Nate into bed, she could clearly see that Steve had just about come to that realization as well. Four hours since Natasha had called, three hours since Steve had turned up, crushed and broken, and looking so horribly guilty and heartbroken.

Laura had taken the bag from him, set him down on the couch and placed the baby in his arms and chased Lila over to him as well, knowing that her secret weapons would at least hold him together for as long as she needed to make dinner. Now as it had turned completely pitch black outside, Steve was lying on the couch, eyes still red and looking so hopeless and conflicted, but at least he was smiling a little at whatever Cooper was babbling about.

Lila was glued to Steve's chest, skinny small knees tugged against his rips, blanket tugged up so high by Cooper earlier that you could barely see the top of her head resting right over Steve's heart, one small hand peaked out then and now while small fingers gently stroked through the hairs at the back of the super soldier's head. On the TV, Laura could make out another episode of the old Captain America cartoon, Steve was positively wrapped into a bubble of Barton comfort.

The little rascals were pure gold.

She sat down in the armchair again and picked up her hot chocolate, on the floor in front of the couch, Cooper mouthed along to the lines of Cap while Lila gave a good impression of teen Bucky Barnes. Laura caught Steve smiling a little more as Lila snickered over something on the TV.  
“Does Barnes know about this?”, Laura asked quietly and blue eyes flickered over to her, Steve snorted and brought up a hand to stroke through Lila's hair as she snuggled deeper into his chest.

“I hope not, I want to see his face when I show this to him.”, he confessed, voice a little rough at the edges, and Laura didn't want to think over how much time he had spent crying on the flight over.  
“Did he like the comics?”, Cooper wanted to know and twisted around to look at Steve, “They first came out in the war, right?”  
“Yes, they did.”, Steve replied, smile growing even more, “Bucky...he wasn't the biggest fan.”, he admitted and Laura chuckled, blue eyes spoke just what he didn't want to say around the kids, “He didn't exactly like that he was portrayed as a little kid.”

“But twelve is not a little kid.”, Lila argued, propping herself up on one arm on Steve's chest, “That's even two years older than Coop, twelve is being old.”, she proclaimed and Laura laughed quietly over the look on Steve's face, “And Bucky always has Captain America's back. Steve, when are we meeting Bucky?”, the topic change came so quickly that even Steve had to blink at the devious smirk on Lila's face for a moment.

Round brown eyes fixed on him, small arms wrapping around his neck, even Cooper laid his head back to see Steve answer.  
“Well, I think that's more your Dad's decision.”, he saved himself and sent a long look over to Laura, both kids followed his example.  
“Like Steve said, munchkins, that's Daddy's decision.”, Lila and Cooper both groaned upon her words and Steve laughed.

They had this, totally had this in control, Laura thought, patching Captain America's heart back together, just another Tuesday on the farm.

\--

A few minutes past midnight, Clint had finally found the bottle of good old Bourbon down in the cabinet in the living room and had walked up to the third floor in the Avenger's quarters, knocked on Tony's door and then waited. Tony opened after a short moment, barefoot, black wife-beater half torn on one side, motor oil still on his cheeks.  
“This bottle is older than both of us, can I come in?”, Clint asked and Tony stepped to the side, letting him pass into the controlled chaos of his living room.

He settled down on the couch as Tony went over to the cupboards to get glasses, “How is Steve?”, he asked and then set the two glasses down on the coffee table, falling down heavily on the couch next to Clint.  
“Kids got him distracted.”, he repeated what Laura had texted him a while ago and opened the bottle, pouring them both a good glass, “Cheers to the guilt.”, Clint proposed and Tony clanked his glass against his before both of them started drinking.

“You know it's not your fault, right?”, Clint asked after a long moment of silence, both of them staring up at the ceiling, “It's not like you put that picture there or forced Steve to do it. His choice, his decision.”, he explained and set the empty glass back on the table.  
“Doesn't exactly make me feel less guilty, it's not like I actively turned Steve away.”, Tony grumbled into his Bourbon shot, Clint rolled his head to the side and looked at him.

“Didn't lead him on either, Tony. But I get the feeling guilty part.”, Clint replied and it was Tony's turn to look over to him, “How long have you known?”, he questioned quietly and Clint grimaced.  
“You mean officially? Or between the lines and long glances?”, Clint wanted to know, giving a sad little smile when Tony whined and closed his eyes briefly, “Officially...you remember Steve's panic attack? Induced by that nightmare?”, Tony nodded, “He came to talk to me the next day, so you knew longer. Inofficially? About a week after New York.”, Tony groaned and emptied his glass.

They drank some more, talked about stuff that had honestly no other reason than to distract them from the day's event, it was surely not the healthy way to cope with it. Both of them knew it, but Clint also knew that they were both too broken to work through this crap like strong adult humans should, and he'd rather drink with Tony than let him crash alone without someone there to stop them. Natasha was on stand-by, asked by him to come by at three in the morning to stop them, but as it turned out they didn't need her.

They were in the middle of sketching out some new bullshit arrows, that would never see the light of day unless Tony saw fit to prank Clint into a screaming fit again, when Clint's phone buzzed on the table with an unknown number and the archer froze with one hand hovering in mid air.  
“You're not gonna take that?”, Tony wanted to know, hanging upside down the couch, flipping paper-balls under his coffee table, brown eyes flickered over to Clint's face when the blond hadn't said a word, “Clint?”

“It's Bucky.”, he stuttered out and Tony raised an eyebrow, all reservations and mouth-locks gone now where Steve wasn't around to stop him.  
“Aaaaaand we're not taking booty calls past midnight? Want me to give you the room for your awkward phone sex? Robocop too much for you, Legolas?”, it all got pushed past thickly grinning lips, drunk as he was, Stark was still in perfect form. For a second Clint glowered but then giggled, downright fucking giggled, too wasted to still fucking care, Tony snorted in response and flapped a hand towards the phone himself.

“No, wait....Tony...what if he asks about Steve...”, but Tony had already blindly accepted the call and put it on speaker before losing his balance and sliding fully down on the ground, starting to laugh within seconds while Clint still stared wide eyed at the phone.  
“What happens if I ask about Steve?”, Bucky asked after a small break of silence and hearing his voice made Clint break out into a grin so bright that Tony nearly decapitated himself in his struggle to get upright again, laughing himself silly.

“Dude, you are so gone, it's embarrassing.”, Tony slurred and then flopped himself down on the couch again, feet landing in Clint's lap.  
“What happens if I ask about Steve?”, Bucky growled, pitching his voice low and dark and even over the phone is was scary enough that Clint and Tony both shivered, even if for completely different reasons, “Clint, answer, right now.”  
“Nothing.”, Clint blurted out, “I don't know. Maybe an eagle falls upon your head? Attacks you in your sleep because you doubted the capabilities of America's biggest hero? Uhhh, you know what, no, I betcha the President has specially trained bald eagles to be pitched against you in a fight to the death in the garden of the White House if you question Captain America's ability to live his perfect life dedicated to the good old US of A.”

“How long have Stark and you been drinking? Is there anyone around I can actually have a decent conversation with.”, Bucky grumbled and Clint gasped in mock outrage.  
“You hurt me. Me and my feelings, Bucky.”, he complained, drawing out the feelings until it became double the amount of syllables and Tony choked on hiccups.  
“Aww, you made it look sad, Terminator, stop making it look sad, we want it to be happy.”, the engineer whined, poking at Clint's stomach with his toes while blue eyes pouted at the phone.

Bucky was silent for a long moment and then gave a very heavy sigh, “Wow.”, he spoke out slowly, “If I yell, can somebody hear me then? Or no, Jarvis, can you hear me?”, Clint and Tony both giggled while making hectic shushing gestures at the ceiling.  
“I certainly can, Sergeant Barnes.”, but Jarvis didn't even acknowledge them, his voice coming out smooth and calm as always.  
“Isn't that great. Can you do me a favor and get someone here who can talk to me like a sane person. I have found something, and need something else checked out. And cut Stark and Barton off from whatever the fuck they were drinking, please.”, Bucky demanded from the phone.

“Good Bourbon, Barnes, beautiful thing, almost as old as you.”, Tony drawled and draped himself more closely around Clint who was still staring at the phone with round blue eyes, saddened by being ignored. Bucky huffed and from the sounds coming over the line, he moved around a little.  
“I feel honored, Stark.”, he deadpanned and Tony laughed again, a little clumsily headbutting Clint in the chest.

“Agents Romanov and Wilson are on their way, Sergeant Barnes.”, Jarvis informed and then brightened the room until Clint and Tony both grunted in discomfort.  
“Thank you.”, Bucky replied, “Clint?”, he then called out and the archer gave a small noise to show that he was listening, Bucky said his next words in Russian, “Will you be sober later? I need to talk to you. Your ears only.”, he emphasized in the end, Tony grumbled over not understanding a word.  
“Of course.”, Clint called out happily, sitting up more straight again and beaming from one ear to the other as the door got opened by Jarvis to let Natasha and Sam in.

\--

Meanwhile a little ways off base, in the closest town, Sammy Radcliff had just had to experience that sulking in a club at the bar quickly led to advances of annoying smart-asses.

“I'm not a nice girl.”, she pointed out a little snappily and stepped onto the defensive right afterward, and then immediately took another long sip from the softdrink bottle, she had zero intentions to get wasted tonight, even though it could really feel nice to just forget how sucky everything was for one night. Or simply just forget the cheap and downright pathetic pick-up line this cheesy guy had just used on her.

Seriously, guys these days. How could any woman even think about being straight in this world of douchebags and assholes? Louis or Luca or whatever his name was kept on smiling dumbly at her, until at least she felt another presence at her back, a warm body sliding into the space the bar right behind her, prompting the guy coming onto her to freeze on the spot, smile slipping from his lips.  
“She's right, buddy. So not a nice girl, quite a badass actually, so why don't you go and do us all the favor of not wanting to find out just how bad she can and will kick your ass into the moon, hm?”, the heavily accented voice was chilling and the brunet idiot made himself scarce in the next second.

Sammy chuckled and turned to look up at Pietro, who smirked down at her, dressed in a tight dark blue shirt and black skinny jeans, he looked quite dashing and mouth-watering, and yeah maybe she was a little bit into the bottle already.  
“Hey there.”, she greeted him and set the empty bottle on the bar counter, she had come to the club one hour away from the base with the sole intention to have one night of no responsibilities, of not being Agent Radcliff for once but just a woman in her twenties who had not just broken up with Captain America of all people, broken up with him because he was completely head over heels in love with Tony freaking fucking Stark.

As if anyone could compete with that.

Certainly not her.

Captain America and Iron Man, a match made in heaven.

“Did Barton sent you?”, she shot up to the young man before he could have even uttered a word in greeting himself, “Because I don't need a babysitter, I'm fine.”, and bitter and snappish and drunk.  
“Yeah, I can see that.”, Pietro deadpanned and Sammy gritted her teeth, cursed the fact he knew her so well, “And no, Clint doesn't know I'm here. I asked Maria where you went and only came here some minutes ago.”, he explained, frowning down at her in pure concern.

“To drag me back to base?”, she challenged and turned around to lean her back against the bar, watching the crowd on the dancefloor. So young, so free and happy.  
“No.”, Pietro answered and stepped in front of her, holding out a hand, “I'm here to ask the not so nice girl to dance with me.”, his cocky grin returned for a second and then turned into a genuine smile and even though Sammy knew what it was, a scheme to help her distract herself from what would be waiting for her back home, she still grabbed Pietro's hand without a second of hesitation, he had always found a way under her skin.

And maybe Steve had been right with some points, maybe she had fooled herself into believing that she only felt something for Steve. She had thought it was him, but maybe they had both needed each other to realize what their hearts really wanted to have.  
“Come on.”, Pietro smiled brighter and pulled her towards the dancefloor, “Let's live while we're young.”

\--

Living while they're young ended some hours later, when Pietro was half carrying a giggling and babbling completely drunk Sammy out of the club and into the cold night. Walking and helping her over into one of the darker alleys on the other side of the street, Pietro tried to let them be as inconspicuous as they could be with Sammy half singing Portuguese lullabies.  
“Hey, where are we going?”, she stopped when Pietro leaned her against the wall of an old sport's store to tie his left shoe again, “My car is over there.”, Sammy called out, pointed to the left, then to the right, then she spun in a circle and scowled, “At least it's not here.”

“You're not driving.”, Pietro made clear and stood back up, grabbing Sammy's wrist when she lurched dangerously to the side, “I'm gonna bring you back to base.”  
“Does your car wait here? Strange place to park.”, she muttered quietly and leaned against him, head slumping against his neck, she was kinda adorable when drunk, Pietro had to admit and smiled slightly, but in the next moment Sammy was talking again and turning everything upside down.

“You know, Steve was right. I do love Pietro more than I made myself believe. And who wouldn't, he is great, he's nice and he makes me laugh.”, Sammy was telling him suddenly, unfocused brown eyes staring at something over his right shoulder, “And now I realize that Steve was right, it was totally fair to bring you up. It is almost the same as what he has done with Stark, just because Pietro doesn't love me, doesn't mean that I wasn't enjoying his attention more than Steve's sometime.”, Sammy confessed and then frowned at her hands for a second before whistling on again, completely unaware of how blue eyes were staring at her in pure panic, disbelief and shock.

\--

Pietro rushed them back to base and thanks to Jarvis' quick reactions directly up into the Avenger's quarters without any disturbances. Sammy visibly fought against getting sick when he set her on her feet again and wobbled until he reached for her elbow again to steady her. His head and heart still screaming at each other and him, turning in circles and spinning out of control whenever he looked at her. Her words got repeated over and over again by his freaked out mind.

He knocked on his sister's door and stared blankly at the simple blue door until Wanda opened with tired eyes, her hair wild, obviously having been woken out of bed by his nightly visit.  
“Piet, what is....holy shit!”, Wanda switched from grumpy to shocked within seconds as she spotted Sammy at his side, “What did you do?”, she wanted to know and frantically waved her hand towards the red couch in her living room.

Pietro led Sammy over and waited until she was sitting before he dashed across the room, leaning against the wall with sweaty hands. Wanda stared at him for a second, but then shook her head and decided her priorities were definitely not spent on her weird brother for the moment. Tugging a blanket over Sammy's shoulders and pulling off the ankle boots, Wanda turned to get some water when red hair brushed past her still open door in the corridor and she called out for Natasha.

“Hey, Nat, you got a moment? Pietro brought something home.”, the redhead appeared in the doorframe upon her question and then looked to Clint slumped at her shoulder, one hand rubbing his temple.  
“How about we switch. Pietro brings Clint into bed and I help you with Sammy.”, she proposed and Pietro was past her and dragging Clint off in a heartbeat, having the blond complain about moving too fast. Natasha rolled her eyes and walked into the room before closing the door, smiling slightly for the bedraggled look on Sammy's face.

\--

In Clint's quarters, Pietro shoved him onto the couch and didn't even look long enough how the older man landed on it before turning away again, pacing in front of the TV immediately, hands pulling at his hair. Clint needed a moment to get his equilibrium back before lying down on his back, eyes searching for the silver haired youngster. Natasha had shoved coffee into him until she had been happy with the level of clarity in his eyes, as if Bucky's explanation of possibly having found a lead to where Rumlow kept his most prized hostages had not already been able to sober him up like a sledgehammer.

“What's gotten into you?”, he croaked out and blindly fumbled for the bottle of water he always kept under the coffee table.  
“Sammy...”, Pietro began his stuttering and then quickly broke off again and whined, long and high and on the couch Clint sat up in concern, only now noticing how thrown off course the boy was, “Sammy said...”, he tried again and then whirled around to look at Clint with wide frightened eyes, “Steve is going to kill me.”

“Okay, okay, back up a little, and sit down.”, Clint ordered and patted the couch next to him, Pietro was completely shaken and halfway out of control, powers rushing through his limbs and having him stumble against the couch when he couldn't stop in time. Clint grabbed his wrist and pulled him down on it, one hand checking over the boy's temperature but finding nothing out of norm, “Did you drink as well? Pietro, what is wrong?”

“Sammy told me Steve made her realize today that she likes me more than just a friend.”, it bubbled out of him in one single breath and Clint's brain came to a stand still, “She told me outside the club, we've been dancing and having a good time and she was laughing again, and then she got tired and I took her outside to get back home, and then she told that she thinks she is in love with me too. And that it's not fair to blame Steve for loving Tony when he isn't the only one she loves either.”, he was gasping on his breaths as his speech sped up even more and Clint reached out a hand to push him down a little towards his knees, Pietro just went on, “And I don't think she knows she was talking to me, she just kept on going and I didn't know what to do...Dad...when Steve finds out...”

Wide blue eyes looked over to Clint whose head kickstarted back into working upon that helpless look, trying to remember for a second if he had ever had this kind of conversation with Sarah, but she had usually gone to Laura with her relationship troubles.  
“Alright, take a deep breath, Piet. Nothing is going to happen, okay? This is not your fault, and Steve will not kill you, nor will he throw you out or anything close to that. He will understand, this is how things happen sometimes, you can't plan what the heart wants. All of us are humans.”, Clint said and pulled Pietro into his arms when the younger man let out another string of high noises, “Things are quite screwed at the moment, but they're gonna be okay again, we just need some time to find a new balance.”

“But what am I gonna do?”, Pietro mumbled into Clint's shirt, “How am I gonna look any of them in the eyes?”, he groaned and despaired but Clint smiled and leaned his chin on a silver haired head.  
“You're gonna go to bed, you're gonna sleep. We're both going to sleep, and then in the morning you're gonna see if you want to talk to Sammy or hide down in the lab with Tony.”, the archer spoke quietly and Pietro huffed, “All this time saying you only see her as a friend...was that the whole truth, Piet?”, came as a whispered question as an afterthought.

“I don't know anymore.”, came the answer from a very very quiet unsure voice.

\--

There were nights where Laura couldn't sleep, no matter how much she tried or how many tricks she used, sleep just wouldn't come, and it didn't always have much to do with Clint, Natasha or any of the girls being on missions and like that in potential danger. If that had been the case, she would have never gotten sleep the second she met Clint Barton for the first time a year after starting at Shield.

No, it was usually her mind not able to shut off that kept her wide awake in the dead of night, and she had learned not to force the issue, it only let her grow uncomfortable and shifted her mind to all the things she could be worrying about. Sometimes Clint had tried to stay up with her when her insomnia acted up again, but it was always a sweet attempt only and Clint could sleep everywhere within seconds if he just had someone to watch his back. Natasha was a much more lovable companion, she cherished silence just as much as Laura did and it was easy to just sit with her in the living room without any conversation.

When the girls had come around, Sarah first, bringing along Julie and Tess later, they had all tried their best to spent the nights with her at times as well, but Julie and Tess liked sleep and soft beds too much. Only Sarah could function on little to no sleep and it had always worried Laura a little, watching her sweet darling read book after book on the couch back in their apartment in New York, then in DC and then also here on the farm.

Tonight she almost felt bad for sneaking down the stairs, the kids were all heavy sleepers, even Nate could only rouse himself if hunger struck or if he needed a new nappy, but with a super-soldier sleeping in Natasha's room, it was impossible to not pull someone out of sleep as well. She had thought for minutes over whether or not she wanted to go down and sit by the fire and chance waking up Steve who really needed his sleep right now, but then the bedroom walls had started to crowd in on her and taken the decision from her. As it turned out though, it was all concern for nothing, because as she stepped around the corner at the bottom of the stairs, she found Steve sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest by the large windows, head leaned against the glass and blue eyes watching the snow fall, or see nothing at all.

He was crying.

Silent tears falling over his face, and Laura had to bite her lips to keep from heaving a sigh. Walking over to him, she grabbed the thick woolen blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over his broad shoulders as she stopped next to him. Steve looked up at her as if he had only noticed her then, his hands clumsily grabbing the edges of the blanket, looking so horribly lost even as Laura pushed a hand through his hair.

"I wanted to make some hot cocoa, you want some as well?", she asked quietly and he nodded, couldn't even bring out a word in reply, just went back to staring out of the window as Laura stepped over into the kitchen and made two steaming hot cups of cocoa. After sitting both cups down on the ground, Laura grabbed another blanket and a pillow from the armchair and settled down in front of Steve, watching the snow fall herself. She knew perfectly well how sometimes it was enough to just not be alone, not everyone needed to talk, and Steve remained quiet for the next ten minutes before sighing.

He dragged a hand roughly down his face and reached for his cup, taking a long sip before looking over to her, and Laura tried to keep the mothering instinct to shake him into accepting help.  
“I'm sorry if I woke you up, I tried to be quiet.”, Steve apologized, but Laura waved it off.  
“You didn't, I couldn't sleep, it happens sometimes. No one heard you get up, the kids all sleep like rocks. Do you want to talk about why you're down here and not sleeping?”, she asked and offered, softly, not wanting to give him the impression that he needed to say something.

“My head is too loud.”, Steve answered, “Too much thinking, too much guilt. And as horrible as it sounds, I'm thinking about Tony most of all. Thinking about how he must feel now.”, he mumbled and Laura thought back to the short message from Clint that included the remark that he was on his way up to Tony with a bottle of old Bourbon, which didn't exactly scream everything was fine to her. Nevertheless, she reached out a hand and wrapped it around Steve's left one, “I screwed up. I thought I had it under control, but I couldn't stop thinking about Tony, couldn't stop wanting him. It wasn't fair to Sammy, and it wasn't fair to Tony either. I hurt them both.”, he sighed again, “I love Sammy, I still do and I was happy with her, but Tony...it's something else.”

“Agent Radcliff meant stability.”, Laura tried to put it into words for him, “Tony is the unknown, something wild.”, Steve nodded, setting his cup down again.  
“I just wish I could have had the courage to speak up before it got too far, before anyone got hurt. I should have been honest to Sammy about my feelings. I shouldn't have tried to push it away, to pretend to be blind to what was right there.”, he blamed himself and frowned heavily at the snow falling against the windows.

"Love isn't black and white, Steve. Some people get lucky, they find the one person that completes them, who makes them so happy that no other person can ever take the same place in their heart.", Laura talked and then let her eyes flicker over to the wedding photo that hung right next to Clint and hers on the wall over the TV, both women smiling like the sun itself in their white dresses.  
"Like Julie and Sarah.", Steve had followed her gaze and read her thoughts, “Tess admired what they had, the trust, the love between them. She told me that's what the perfect marriage should be.”

"Exactly like Julie and Sarah.”, Laura agreed, “But not everyone finds their perfect ones, and maybe not everyone has one, at least not in any place he or she might find them, but that doesn't mean you should give up. Clint and I, we both wanted to have a family all our lives, people to love unconditionally, who would love us back with the same amount of unbroken dedication. We found each other, but we also found Natasha, and it's maybe unconventional, but for us it's right. It feels right, and isn't that what's important?”, Laura said out loud and Steve nodded, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, “And now, I'm not around, I can't see them interact, but I hear what Clint tells me, and he is certainly ready to give Barnes some of that love as well. You can love more than just one person, Steve, there is no reason to feel guilty or terrible about it. Sarah and Julie have set the level astronomically high, but everyone needs to find their own path to happiness."

"And you think Tony can be that for me?", Steve wanted to know, looking at her as if he already knew the truth and only wanted to hear it from someone else' voice as well. Laura bumped her shoulder gently against his side and grinned.  
"I think you can be that for each other, Steve. Tony and you, it can be something really good for both of you.", she answered and Steve smiled brighter, “Love is worth taking a risk.”

\--

Steve returned to the NAI base in the late hours of the morning a few days later, looking much better and relaxed and recovered. First, he took Clint to the side for an hour, then he talked to Sammy for another, at which end both of them looked less destroyed over what had happened and even managed to hug each other very briefly. Then, Steve disappeared into the lab and Tony and him locked themselves in for six hours, and ultimately again told no one what they had been talking about. As the last mission for the day, Steve then talked to Pietro for four hours, and the younger man got out of the older man's rooms looking like whole mountains had fallen from his shoulders, grinning again and even Steve was smiling.

Then, choosing to pass on movie night, Steve went to bed and slept ten hours without waking once, until the Avengers alarm ripped him out of his dreams and sent them all packing to rush to Los Angeles where Hydra was holding the university under siege.

\--

Some days, fate decided it was bored, and when it was bored, it apparently liked to play a round of let's beat up Clint Barton to cheer itself up again.

Like today.

In the chaos that was battling against Hydra forces while at the same time evacuating staff and students and bringing everyone to safety and to the ambulances, Clint had simply gotten lost. Not lost in a sense of direction, he knew exactly in what part of the university he was and kept on debating between going upstairs or out into the courtyard to see if he found more people hiding. They were taking the buildings back one by one, and so far it worked. 

No, Clint was cut off from the team kinda lost, and it hadn't really been intentional, but you know, sometimes Steve did the stupid, sometimes Clint took over. Work sharing.

He chose the courtyard and readied an arrow in case it was swarming with Hydra agents, but when he stepped through the doors and out into the rectangle formed yard with the pillars all around, it looked empty.

Looked empty. But wasn't empty.

Clint had made seven steps into the yard, reached the second pillar, eyes checking out every nook, every corner he could see, believing to be safe, but then the door slammed shut and was locked with an audible click. And Clint was no longer alone.

“Like the fly into the spider web.”, the voice came from the other side of the courtyard, cocky, overly confident, snarky and bitchy as he had been from the second Clint had met him for the very first time all these years ago. Blue eyes narrowed and he slowly turned around with the bow and arrow raised, aiming it right at Brock Rumlow's head where the younger man was leaning against one of the pillars. The damned Crossbones suit was nowhere to be seen, instead Rumlow was back in the traditional combat gear that Clint had worn himself so many times on missions as a Shield agent, only the red skull squid was new.

And the dance began.

Arrows and bullets got fired as they lunged from pillar to pillar in a wide circle, dodging each others attacks easily, no one getting any progress. Clint saw the problem when his brain got someone else involved.  
'Stop thinking like a sniper.', a voice singsonged in his head and Clint almost stumbled upon the shock of hearing his oldest daughter's snappish voice in the safety of his own mind, “He trained a sniper for years, you fucking idiot, he made me. And he worked with the best damn sniper of the world, quite up close, he knows how they think and fight, you moron. So stop acting like one and make it dirty.'

“Is that all you've got?”, Rumlow yelled over to him and Clint gritted his teeth, dropping the bow and his last arrow and reached for the knife at his hip. Time to make this personal.  
“Wanna find out? Then come out and stop hiding like a coward.”, he screamed back at Rumlow and came out from behind the pillar, “Lay down your gun and let's decide this face to face.”, he called out and Rumlow followed, threw his knife into the open but behind himself as he stepped out of his hiding place himself, cocky, arrogant.

Clint's eyes raced over the other man's form, tried to find weak spots, tried to find hitting points, gauging the way he walked to make assumptions and calculations for the way he would act.  
'You're still thinking like a sniper.', Sarah warbled in his head and Clint took a deep breath, let Hawkeye take a backseat and let the angry kid take over. Rumlow had the girls. Rumlow hurt Bucky. Rumlow tried to kill Steve. Rumlow had the girls, Rumlow hurt Bucky, Rumlow tried to kill Steve.

Make. Him. Pay.

Clint roared and jumped. Threw his fist and hit home.

'Now, we're getting somewhere.', Sarah's voice cheered in Clint's head and he grinned in satisfaction as he took another punch at that fucking jerk, almost feeling delight in the sound of knuckles hitting bone. Rumlow groaned but then retaliated and Clint felt the fist connect with his jaw, throwing his head back, he gave a loud cry and both men lost themselves into their fight.

\--

It was a struggle that unfortunately didn't last long, much to Clint's own personal shock, Rumlow turned out to be stronger and quicker than he had expected. And despite pulling all tricks in the books and even more those out of them, he quickly found himself overpowered by the world's third surviving super-soldier. He couldn't help but choke on a gasp when Rumlow had his back flattened against his chest, one arm pressing against his neck, the other one pushing the knife deeper and deeper into the padding of Clint's uniform, not long till it would give away.

“Not so mouthy anymore now, aren't we, Barton?”, Rumlow snarled close to his ear and Clint growled, “Did you know how loud she can scream? How much pain she can take? Impressed even me. How much she was begging for me to stop?”, Rumlow taunted him and Clint felt his body turn to ice, “Want me to tell you a secret? She didn't, not a single time, not once, because I was always meant to have her. She has always been mine and with my help she will come to achieve greatness.”

“I don't think so, Commander.”, a cold sneer got spoken behind them and for a short moment, Clint's brain went into overdrive, because no, no, this wasn't worth it, don't give up your identity, your safety for this, not for him. He wasn't worth it. But then Rumlow tensed at Clint's back and slowly turned around, wrenching Clint along as well. And they didn't come face to face with the barrel of a gun, nor the shine of a metal fist, nor did Clint look into the blue eyes of his favorite soldier, and the relief was almost uplifting.

Until his eyes really realized with whom they were faced now. It was Pietro.

"Let go of him.", Clint could feel how Rumlow started smirking, ugly visage being raised away from his ear again, turning them towards Pietro's seething face and Clint's heart dropped.  
"Piet, go. Leave. Right now.", he begged, threw away any hesitation of showing just how much he cared to the enemy forces. People had seen them fight, everyone knew what the kids meant to him.  
"Listen, Rumlow, let him go and we give you back what belongs to you.", Pietro snarled and ignored the begging look in blue eyes entirely, while Clint's knees gave out and he slowly sank to the ground.

Don't let him take another one, his mind begged and screamed at him, come on, get up, fight, do something, do not let him take another one from you. But his body was frozen.  
"What could you possibly have that is of any interest to me?", Rumlow asked in pure amusement, but then...then he froze because upon a snapped finger, someone else appeared from behind the pillar. 

It was Wanda.

But she wasn't alone, moving in front of her in complete trance, eyes glowing red was Jack Rollins, strong arms hanging like dead weights at his sights, revolver held in his right hand.  
"Let Clint go, and you get your boy back.", Pietro made the demand clear and somewhere in the deep rooted panic Clint was proud, but goddammit, not with Rumlow, not with him. He had already lost too many people to this bastard.

"Oh, what makes you think he is important to me.", Rumlow growled and set the knife to Clint's throat, Pietro tensed, but it was Wanda who stepped forward, calm and calculating.  
"Call it a hunch.", she said and with no movement at all she had Jack kneeling on the stone tiles in front of her, Rumlow bristled and the knife cut into Clint's skin. It burned and Clint focused his energy on slowing his breathing, slowing his pulse, slowing his heartbeats.  
"Get away from him, you witch.", Rumlow snarled and damn, what a button that must have pushed, Clint could still remember Rumlow throwing fits in their Strike days when Jack had gotten into danger, but this was a whole new level of 'I'm gonna burn the world down if you hurt him' kind of pissed. Jack had always been one of Rumlow's rare weak spots, seemed that had only increased.

"Oh, are we afraid of a little mindgames now? Where did that change of mind suddenly come from?", Wanda's face turned dark, "Didn't seem to bother you so much when it was  
James Barnes. Did you like it? The control? The power to have someone do everything you do? Smile.", she spoke and Jack followed, smiling happily, "Scream.", and Jack howled in pain, "Or even die?", spoken by her and Jack put the gun he was still carrying to his own temple, Clint could feel how Rumlow turned dead still behind him, "Just because you found it funny?", Wanda challenged, "Let Clint go."

Rumlow broke.

To all of their surprise, Rumlow gave in, even pulled the knife back again slightly so that the blade was no longer cutting into Clint's throat, "Fine, let Jack go, I let Barton go.", he offered and Pietro glanced down at Clint while Wanda held Rumlow's gaze without any effort. Clint couldn't help but wonder what she had seen in Jack's head, what she was showing him to have him this distraught, he was breathing heavily and his eyes screamed with pain.  
"Yeah, not a chance.", Pietro huffed and took over again, "How about you throw away that knife and my sister lets your boy drop the gun. Let's start with that, huh?", Rumlow huffed out in anger but then the knife clattered to the ground and Pietro nodded at Wanda, Jack dropped the gun and Pietro kicked it away.

“Perfect, let's move on then, why don't we. Pull Clint to his feet and Rollins can stand up as well again.”, Pietro proposed and Clint was hurled to his feet not a second later, Wanda released Jack from his kneeling position as well, “Great, now you take a step back and I have Rollins with you within the blink of an eye.”, once again Rumlow obeyed and suddenly Clint was starting to get a really bad feeling about this. Something was wrong.

Nevertheless Pietro made the exchange and Clint found himself facing Rumlow in the next second, Pietro on one side and Wanda behind them, watching how Rumlow grabbed Rollins' elbow and steered him behind himself before looking back towards them.  
“So, everyone has what they wanted.”, Rumlow drawled and Clint felt himself stepping forward already again but Pietro held him back.  
“I will never have what I want as long as you are alive, Brock.”, he snapped instead and Rumlow focused on him once more, smirking in that old familiar way.

The smirk that had drawn Sarah into his trap over a decade ago. The smirk that had led to the war within Strike once Julie had joined. He wanted to wipe it off, wanted to get rid of it eternally.

“Unfortunately for you, Barton, that will have to wait, I've got other plans for the rest of the day.”, Rumlow explained in that sickening sweetened voice and then snapped a finger. In the following moment Clint was nearly taken off his feet as the turbines of a Quinjet got fired off, mirror panels and cloaking effect giving away to reveal the old Shield jet not far from them, resting in the middle of the courtyard. 

The trap had been bigger than first thought.

The ramp got lowered while Clint was still struggling to keep on his feet, Pietro lunged for the gun Rollins had dropped but it was for nothing in the light of the troupe of heavily armed Hydra soldiers that came down from the jet, rifles aimed at them. Two men broke off from the formation and took Rollins with them into the jet, Rumlow chuckled upon seeing the furious seething scowl on Clint's face, they had been played.

And god how much Clint hated it.

“Not so sure anymore now, huh?”, Rumlow bit out, flashing his teeth as he raised one hand, behind him the men retreated one by one until only two were left at the top of the ramp, “It was fun as always to work with you, Hawkeye.”, Hydra's head taunted him and then clicked something in his hand and Clint's world exploded into pain.

\--

“No!”, Wanda yelled to hold Pietro back as he made to go after Rumlow who was walking up into the Quinjet, laughing and smirking in satisfaction over Clint writhing on the floor, screaming at the top of his lungs, “Pietro don't! You'll only get hurt!”, she pleaded, hands already frantically trying to figure out what was happening to Clint. Pietro growled but whirled around again and fell to his knees next to Clint as well, pulling his hands down from where they were clutching at his ears.

They came away bloodied.

Wanda snapped a finger up to the comm in her ear immediately, “Cap, we have a problem.”, she needed to yell even louder over the sound of the taking off Quinjet and Clint's screaming. Steve demanded to know what was going on, the jet shot off into the sky and Clint passed out, and suddenly it was horribly quiet in the courtyard.

“Dad?”, Pietro called out, hands cupping the archer's face, gently slapping a few fingers against his cheeks while Wanda gave her quick report to Steve.  
“His ears are bleeding? Shit!”, Pietro heard the reply as well, and the siblings exchanged a worried look, their hearts racing in their chests, “Iron man, take Widow to the twins. War Machine, Vision, go after the jet. It's gonna be okay, Pietro, Wanda, just keep him calm and let him see your lips when he comes to again.”

Pietro and Wanda looked at each other again when Steve was done, and then they both leaned down to check over Clint's ear, Wanda found a small chip that Rumlow must have stuck to Clint's neck, taking it off, she flinched when she brought it up to her own ear, it was ringing with a high pitched noise. Pietro snapped it out of her hands and broke it in two, the noise died right away.

Tony landed next to them with Natasha on one boot next to them a minute later, and Natasha knelt down to slap a hand over Clint's face not a second later. Pietro made to protest but Clint's eyes flickered open, face shifting into a grimace.  
“EMP.”, he snarled in a croaking voice, twisting his hands into fists, “Stark!”, he snapped next and Natasha whipped her hand into his line of sight, pointing over her shoulder, “Tony, you got back-up aids somewhere in your pockets?”

Aids? Aids for what, Pietro thought to himself and saw the confusion mirrored on his sister's face. Wanda blinked and turned to lean over Clint as Tony started to get out of his suit behind them.  
“You're deaf?”, Wanda said and signed at the same time, Clint's eyes popped open even wider, gaping at her in surprise as her fingers flew over the words, “You never told us you were deaf. Why did we never see anything?”, Natasha made a sound of surprise and slapped Clint's face again, this time gentler, Pietro felt as if caught in a twilight zone.

“You didn't tell them you're deaf?”, Natasha asked angrily and her hands signed in sharp movements that Pietro thought portrayed the emotion quite well.  
“I didn't?”, Clint questioned right back, eyes flying towards Pietro who deadpanned at him as much as he could in his shock.  
“No, you didn't.”, he signed, behind him Tony gave a small whoop of triumph as he apparently found what he was looking for, “Think that I would remember that.”, Pietro continued.

“Then how do you know how to sign?”, Clint asked dumbly, pain and injuries did that to him, Natasha and Laura had emphasized that so many times, it was as if being hurt let his IQ drop marginally for a while.  
“Our mother was deaf.”, Wanda explained and Clint grinned, “Huh, that's convenient.”, he said and Natasha and Wanda both twisted their faces into murderous glares, Clint grimaced even more, and then Tony's hand popped between them, holding a pair of purple hearing aids.

Three minutes later, Clint was sitting upright on the ground while Natasha and Wanda checked the courtyard again and Tony inspected the small chip. Pietro had taken over the glaring duties, kneeling directly in front of Clint.  
“In my defense, “, Clint started carefully, still playing with the aids in his fingers, ears hurting too much to put them in just yet, at least the bleeding had stopped, “I thought I had told you, and it's not like it's a big deal.”

“You didn't tell me.”, Pietro said and signed, “And yes, it kinda is a big fucking deal. Steve is going to kill you and I honestly think at this point I'm gonna help.”, Clint groaned in response and just then Maria informed them that the last Hydra soldier on sight had been apprehended, and on the south side of the courtyard, the door slammed open and Steve strode in, looking like payback is a bitch was his new favorite motto. Clint was so not looking forward to that lecture.

\--

Stay tuned for the epilogue.


	24. Epilogue - A Discovery

Epilogue: 

He found Clint on the rooftop, legs dangling over the edge of the building while his eyes were fixed on something in the distance only he could see. Walking slowly towards him, Pietro settled down next to the archer, closing his eyes briefly upon feeling the warmth of the setting sun on his face.  
He caught sight of the quickly flicked question from Clint's fingers when he had reopened his eyes and he raised one hand to respond.

“I'm fine.”, he spoke and signed at the same time and then flinched when Clint raised one hand quickly himself and slapped the back of his head in a gentle reproach.  
“I could hear you stomping those feet at least halfway up the staircase.”, the older man said, tilting his head to the side to observe him with protective blue eyes, “What's wrong, Piet?”, Clint asked and Pietro groaned, dropping back upon his back into the pebbles on the rooftop.

Clint raised an eyebrow and then pulled one knee up to rest upon the edge, turning and shifting around a little so he didn't have to crane his neck back so far to watch him.  
“I don't think I can talk about it just yet.”, Pietro sighed but he found Clint merely nodding down at him, understanding shining in his eyes.  
“If you do, you know how to find me.”, he offered and it was Pietro's turn to nod.

Silence fell between them, and Pietro kept his eyes fixed on the slowly passing by clouds in the sky while Clint once again looked into the distance.  
“Can I ask you something?”, Pietro broke the silence again when the clouds started to bore him and his curiosity finally won out, Clint waved a hand in a signal to just go ahead.  
“Have you always had...difficulties with your hearing or...”, the question rang out into nothingness when Clint smiled and looked back to him.

“Both. I was born with bad hearing already, but the first problems arose when my father started to take his frustration out on my brother and me instead of his work associates. There is only so many times a hand can come down upon your already damaged ears without permanently ruining something. But I was still able to hear good on one ear when I joined Shield...the rest is a mission gone real south. Like Antarctica south. Was a couple of years before Budapest...before I met Natasha. Partner turned coward, fucked up and I got caught in an explosion. When Agent Coulson found me a couple of days later, I couldn't hear a damn thing anymore.”

“But Shield helped you?”, Pietro asked and Clint was surprised over the non existent pity on the younger man's face, people usually tended to overlook the fact that he made something with his life and focused on the bad parts, but Pietro was just curious.  
“Yes, they did. Got me the best hearing aids science had to offer at that point, and well, once Tony came around I never had to worry about that anymore anyway.”, he explained, leaning down to show Pietro the barely visible purple device in his right ear.

“What about the agent who...left you behind?”, the silver haired youngster asked, forcing the last words past his lips as if it was physically impossible to even think about the possibility. Clint had to think back to the moment when he had to leave Natasha behind, in the clutches of Ultron, and felt very well why it was hard to even think about it, he still felt the nausea flaring up inside of him.  
“He paid for his betrayal and his mistakes. He is dead.”, Clint explained and blue eyes frowned a little up at him.

“Did you kill him?”, Pietro wondered aloud and Clint found himself chuckling, turning his eyes towards the forest again.  
“No. No, I didn't. I thought about it often, especially in those first days when I could barely lift a finger without passing out again. But I didn't kill him, he made a mistake and he got the punishment. The career one first, the karma one second. He got killed by the Winter Soldier last year, he was working for Hydra.”, it was easy to talk about it, Clint found, easy to talk about things suddenly that he would have not admitted a few months back.

And he wondered internally if it was because he had finally come to terms with them or because it was simply easy to talk to Pietro about them.

“I thought about it often.”, Pietro started to talk then, and Clint looked back down at him, blue eyes were staring up into the clouds, “How it would feel. To kill Strucker. Not about his goons or the scientists, the doctors or so. Only about how it would feel to kill Strucker and to see his life slip out of him.”  
“Do you regret that you didn't get to do it in the end?”, Clint asked, even though he already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear the words from Pietro.

“No. He deserved to die, and he did. Once I thought I won't feel the satisfaction when it wasn't by my own hands, but now I don't care anymore. He is dead, he won't be able to hurt us anymore, or anyone else, and that is what counts.”, Pietro spoke quietly but determined and Clint smiled.

“I'm proud of you, you know? You've come a long way, and though you still have much to learn, but I already know that you'll be an important part of the team in the future.”, Pietro grinned and then ducked his head until Clint elbowed him, not wanting to see him hide, he had earned the praise. Pietro was silent for a moment and then looked at him from the corners of his eyes.  
“Will you be a part of the team?”, he wanted to know and Clint immediately smiled, leaning his head back to let the last rays of sunshine warm his skin.

“I have learned my own lessons these last months. And I have long ago learned to listen to the women in my life. I am Hawkeye, he was a part of me long before I even knew who Clint Barton was. And I will never try and push him away again. The Avengers are a part of me now.”  
“Us.”, Pietro corrected, curling his hand into a fist and raising it slightly, the gesture unmistakable, and Clint smiled broader, bumping his own fist lightly against Pietro's.

“Yes, part of us. And we can be proud of that.”

\--

The silence and peace between them was broken when Clint's phone started buzzing with no sign of wanting to stop and they both groaned in annoyance as Clint rolled to his side to take the offending piece of Stark technology from his pockets.  
“Trouble?”, Pietro asked and pushed himself up onto his elbows, Clint shrugged his shoulders but still frowned down at the short message from Maria, ordering them all into the debriefing room.  
“You never know with Hill, could be anything. Come on, let's not keep her waiting, we can come back here later.”, jumping to his feet, he reached down a hand and pulled Pietro to his own.

The assembling alarm rang out when Clint and Pietro reached the end of the stairs and in a instinctual twist of their legs they turned to race down the main corridor of the base, Pietro keeping his steps slow on purpose, Clint's hands twitching for bow and arrow. They met Wanda and Natasha in the door of the meeting room and then they quickly joined Steve and Agent Radcliff who were waiting next to a furiously typing Maria, as Rhodey and Bruce rushed into the room from the other side.

“Bucky found Strike Team Alpha.”, Steve called out before they even reached them fully, Sam, Vision and Tony running in after them. Clint froze, unaware at first to how hard Natasha grabbed his arm.  
Maria snapped her head up then and found their eyes easily, “Like we had feared, Hydra has them, had them all this time, since even before Shield fell, we have all the proof now. Sergeant Barnes says they have been held at this facility in Canada for at least a year now, nothing else is known.”

It was so easy to hear what she didn't say, we don't know if they are allies or enemies now.

“They wouldn't have defected.”, Clint spoke before his mind was even halfway done with swallowing that piece of news, and he shook his head when Maria's eyes landed on him, Steve's eyes filled with careful sympathy.  
“Clint, I know they were your girls but...”, but despite Maria's unusual soft tone and the lack of professional pokerfaces, he still only shook his head harder, sensing Wanda and Pietro stepping closer until they were able to lay a supporting hand on his arm and shoulder on the side of him where Natasha wasn't digging bruises into his bicep with her nails.

“Yes, they are my girls. They wouldn't have defected. They lost too much to Hydra and the KGB. You know where Viktora and Seaway came from, they would never betray us. They would rather die than play for the Russians or Hydra.”, Pietro's hold on his shoulder got stronger when he swayed slightly, his voice hard and steady, not showing the chaos and storm inside his head and heart. Bucky found Strike Team Alpha, it echoed around his mind like a blaring explosion, it numbed his body and set everything on edge at the same time.

The girls were alive, Clint, your girls are alive. You have a chance to save them, a chance to bring them back. You can make good on all the mistakes you did. You can try, you can try. They are alive. You haven't lost them, you haven't lost them. You can bring them home.

“They would have died for what Shield stood for, the real Shield.”, he continued, eyes flying around the room, observing the faces of the others he could see, aside from Steve and Maria no one seemed doubtful, no one was not convinced that his girls were prisoners and not traitors. Coulson chose that moment to step quietly into the room and Clint's eyes immediately zeroed in on him, hands shaking at his sides, but finding strength in the sheer determination in Phil's eyes, and didn't that mean that things were going up. Didn't that mean it was time to hope for something bigger again.

Bucky found Strike Team Alpha.

“They would have given their life for what they believed in, and they believed in the Shield that they joined all these years ago. The Shield that Phil saw. The Shield that Fury gave up on. They were loyal to Shield, they were loyal to Phil and you.”, he snapped in the end and turned his eyes back to Steve, knowing that in the end, his word was more worth than Phil's, “I would have never expected you to be the one doubting their loyalty in the end, these girls admired you. Julie and Tess were your friends.”

It was a low blow, Clint was aware of that, but he had never been known for having tact when personal matters were involved, and he was even less interested in tact and manners and respect if someone dared and questioned the loyalty of his family. Natasha moved to stand with Bruce and Tony when Phil came to stand by his side, and Clint didn't hesitate for a second anymore, grabbed Phil's wrist and held on, because even when the world had been falling to pieces, Phil had always been his rock, he had never moved.

“Bucky was loyal to me, Clint. Hydra already showed that they have no hesitations in brainwashing their weapons.”, Steve reached for the last safety line he could still grasp and as always in the last weeks, Clint tensed up.  
“Still remember what broke him out of that brainwashing? You! His loyalty to you! You wouldn't have left him behind if you had known! You would have destroyed the world if it meant saving Bucky! He was a soldier, a damn good one, but he was never trained to resist mind tricks. These girls were trained to withstand interrogation and torture techniques. 20 months is quite a number, but it is not enough time to break their loyalty to us. To Phil. To me.”, he emphasized at the end of his sentence, breathing hard and grateful for the leg Pietro pushed forward to take some of the weight off of his shaking ones, “I believed in Bucky, Steve, and I never gave up. Not even after we learned what role he played in taking the girls. I brought him home, do the same for me.”

Bucky found Strike Team Alpha.

“So what do we do now?”, it was unsurprisingly Tony who broke the silence after Clint was done chewing Steve out for showing doubt, moving closer to Cap, Tony was already fiddling with the watch he kept on his wrist to call in his suit.

Steve looked from Clint to Tony and back again, and for a couple of seconds the only sound in the room was their irregular breathing again, but then Steve nodded at Clint. He let Steve vanish from his face and Captain America take his place, and blue eyes quickly shone with the focus of a mission. On his right, Tony clicked onto his watch and a jerk whipped through the room as everyone straightened and Clint felt his whole body snap into a single minded focus.

Bucky found Strike Team Alpha.

“Suit up!”

The end


	25. Post Credit Scene

The room threatened to spin around her, paper everywhere, the shelves towering over her, bright light flickering from the lamp swaying from the ceiling, the corridor behind them so dead silent.

“Okay, look at me.”, he turned her around again, still so gentle, still so careful despite the urgency in his voice and metal fingers tipped up her chin until she was looking up at him, “Who am I?”, he asked and the pictures flashed before her eyes. Odessa. Dead blue eyes behind long brown hair. A rifle, a ghost, shots, pain in her shoulder, the screams of her friends. Moscow. Cold blue eyes behind the barrel of a gun held in metal fingers, the blade of a knife held to her throat. Blood dried on his shoulder. 

“Winter Soldier.”, she gasped and stumbled away from him, retreating until she bumped against the wall on the other side of the room, “Your name is James Barnes, and you are the Winter Soldier.”, her heart started pumping the blood through her veins with no abandon, fear rooting her to the spot as more memories scratched themselves to the front of her mind. Odessa, Odessa, Odessa. Moscow.

He must have sensed it, had to be seeing it all play out on her face, for he took two steps closer, carefully, measured movements, arms and hands motionless at his sides. He wanted her to think he wouldn't hurt her.   
“And who are you?”, he asked the same question again that he had asked before dragging her off into this room, before he had killed twelve agents with nothing but a knife, but now she had an answer. Now, she knew.

“My name is Sarah Viktora. I'm the Commander of Strike Team Alpha.”

\--

to be continued in “Strike Team Alpha – Origins”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading!  
> I can’t believe I finished it, the first part of the series is done and I feel like I am caught in a trance. It feels so incredibly amazing.
> 
> Wanna quickly say thank you to Tess, Julie and Sammy who have supported me every second of this journey so far and who are even more amazing and badass than their story equals of the same name. I love you girls and none of this would have been possible without you believing in me.
> 
> The series will be continued on Valentine’s Day with the next installment called “Strike Team Alpha: Origins”, because before you go and save someone, you need to know whom you’re saving. Featuring a look into the individual origins of Commander Viktora and Agents Seaway and St.Oaks, as well as a look into how Rumlow rose to the top in Hydra with Jack Rollins at his side.
> 
> So if you’re interest, stay tuned and check out my tumblr (strike team alpha) for other stuff that might come up for this series.


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